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BARON D'HOLBACH 

A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
RADICALISM IN FRANCE 



BY 



MAX PEARSON CUSHING 



Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in 

the Faculty of Political Science, 

Columbia University 



NEW YORK 
1914 



BARON D'HOLBACH 

A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
RADICALISM IN FRANCE 



BY 



MAX PEARSON CUSHING 



Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in 

the Faculty of Political Science, 

Columbia University 



ic 



NEW YORK 
1914 



i 



£■ 

^ 



PRESS OF 

THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY 

LANCASTER, PA. 



+ \ \ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction i 

Chapter I. Holbach, The Man 5 

Early letters to John Wilkes .6 

Holbach's family 12 

Relations with Diderot, Rousseau, Hume, Garrick 

and other important persons of the century 15 

Estimate of Holbach. His character and personality. 21 

Chapter II. Holbach's Works 26 

Miscellaneous Works 26 

Translations of German Scientific Works 27. 

Translations of English Deistical Writers 31 

Boulanger's Antiquite devoilee 36 

Original Works : Le Christianisme devoilee 38 

Theologie portative 43 

La Contagion sacree 46 

Essai sur les prejuges 49 

Le bon-sens 51 

Chapter ill I. The Systeme de la Nature and its Phi- 

osophy 54 

Voltaire's correspondence on the subject 56 

Goethe's sentiment 58 

Refutations and criticisms 59 

Holbach's philosophy; 65 

Appendix. Holbach's Correspondence 70 

Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes 75 

Bibliography. Part I. Editions of Holbach's Works in 

Chronological Order 85 

Part II. General Bibliography 104 



in 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



A une extreme justesse d" 1 esprit il joignait une simplicite de moeurs tout-d- 
fait antique et patriarcale. 

J. A. Naigeon, Journal de Paris, le 9 fev. 1789 



INTRODUCTION 

Diderot, writing to the Princess Dashkoff in 1771, thus 
analysed the spirit of his century: 

Chaque siecle a son esprit qui le caracterise. L'esprit du 
notre semble etre celui de la liberte. La premiere attaque 
contre la superstition a ete violente, sans mesure. Une fois 
que les hommes ont ose d'une maniere quelconque donner 
l'assaut a la barriere de la religion, cette barriere la plus formid- 
able qui existe comme la plus respectee, il est impossible de 
s'arreter. Des qu'ils ont tourne des regards menacants contre 
la majeste du ciel, ils ne manqueront pas le moment d'apres de 
les diriger contre la souverainete de la terre. Le cable qui 
tient et comprime l'humanite est forme de deux cordes, Tune 
ne peut ceder sans que l'autre vienne a rompre. 1 

The following study proposes to deal with this attack on 
religion that preceded and helped to prepare the French 
Revolution. Similar phenomena are by no means rare in 
the annals of history; eighteenth-century atheism, however, 
is of especial interest, standing as it does at the end of a 
long period of theological and ecclesiastical disintegration 
and prophesying a reconstruction of society on a purely 
rational and naturalistic basis. The anti-theistic move L 
ment has been so obscured by the less thoroughgoing tendency 
of deism and by subsequent romanticism that the real issue 
in the eighteenth century has been largely lost from view. 
Hence it has seemed fit to center this study about the man 
who stated the situation with the most unmistakable and un- 
compromising clearness, and who still occupies a unique 
though obscure position in the history of thought. 

1 Diderot, Oeuvres, ed. Assezat et Tourneux, Vol. XX, p. 28. 



2 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Holbach has been very much neglected by writers on the 
eighteenth century. He has no biographer. M. Walfer- 
din wrote (in an edition of Diderot's Works, Paris, 1821, 
Vol. XII p. 115) : " Nous nous occupons depuis longtemps a 
rassembler les materiaux qui doivent servir a venger la me- 
moire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz, et dans l'ouv- 
rage que nous nous proposons de publier sous le titre D'Hol- 
bach juge par ses contemporains nous esperons faire juste- 
ment apprecier ce savant si estimable par la profondeur et 
la variete de ses connaissances, si precieux a sa famille et a 
ses amis par la purete et la simplicite de ses moeurs, en qui 
la vertu etait devenue une habitude et la bienfaisance un 
besoin." This work has never appeared and M. Tourneux 
thinks that nothing of it was found among M. Walfer din's 
papers. 2 In 1834 Mr. James Watson published in an Eng- 
lish translation of the Systeme de la Nature "A Short 
Sketch of the Life and the Writings of Baron d' Holbach" 
by Mr. Julian Hibbert, compiled especially for that edition 
from Saint Saurin's article in Michaud's Biographie Uni- 
versale (Paris, 181 7, Vol. XX, pp. 460-467), from Bar- 
bier's Diet, des ouvrages anonymes (Paris, 1822) and from 
the preface to the Paris edition of the Systeme de la Nature 
(4 vols., i8mo, 1821). This sketch was later published 
separately (London, 1834, i2mo, pp. 14) but on account of 
the author's sudden death it was left unfinished and is of no 
value from the point of view of scholarship. Another 
attempt to publish something on Holbach was made by Dr. 
Anthony C. Middleton of Boston in 1857. In the preface 
to his translation to the Lettres a Eugenia he speaks of a 
" Biographical Memoir of Baron d'Holbach which I am now 
preparing for the press." If ever published at all this 
Memoir probably came to light in the Boston Investigator, 

2 Grimm, Corr. Lit., Vol. XV, p. 421. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

a free-thinking magazine published by Josiah P. Mendum, 
45 Cornhill, Boston, but it is not to be found. Mention 
should also be made of the fact that M. Assezat intended to 
include in a proposed study of Diderot and the philosophical 
movement, a chapter to be devoted to Holbach and his 
society; but this work has never appeared. 3 

Of the two works, bearing Holbach's name as a title, one 
is a piece of libellous fiction by Mine, de Genlis, Les Diners 
du baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1822, 8vo), the other a romance 
pure and simple by F. T. Claudon (Paris, 1835, 2 vols., 8vo) 
called Le Baron d'Holbach the events of which take place 
largely at his house and in which he plays the role of 
a minor character. A good account of Holbach, though 
short and incidental, is to be found in M. Avezac-Lavigne's 
Diderot et la Societe du Baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1875, 8vo) 
and M. Armand Gaste has a little book entitled Diderot et 
le cure de Montchauvet, une Mystification litteraire chez le 
Baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1895, i6vo). There are several 
works which devote a chapter or section to Holbach. 4 
The French critics and the histories of philosophy contain 
slight notices; Rosenkranz's Diderot's Leben devotes a chap- 
ter to Granval, Holbach's country seat, and life there as de- 
scribed by Diderot in his letters to Mile. Volland ; and he is 
included in such histories of ideas as Soury, J., Breviaire 
de I'histoire de Materialisme (Paris, 1881) and Delvaille, J., 
Essai sur I'histoire de I' idee de pr ogres (Paris, 19 10) ; but 

3 Diederot, Oeuvres, Vol. XX, p. 95. 

4 Among the most important are Damiron J. P., Memoires pour 
servir a I'histoire de la philosophie au dixhuitieme siecle (Paris, 1858, 
3 vols., 8vo) ; Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus (Eng. tr., Boston, 
1877) ; Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopedists (N. Y., 1891, 2 vols., 
i2mo) ; Plekhanow, G., Beitrdge sur Geschichte des Materialismus 
(Stuttgart, 1896) ; Hancock, A. E., The French Revolution and the 
English poets (N. Y., 1899) ; Tallentyre, The Friends of Voltaire 
(London, 1906) ; Fabre, Les Peres de la Revolution (Paris, 1910), etc. 



4 BARON D'HOLBACH 

nowhere else is there anything more than the merest ency- 
clopedic account, often defective and incorrect. 

The sources are in a sense full and reliable for certain 
phases of his life and literary activity. His own publica- 
tions numbering about fifty form the most important body 
of source material for the history and development of his 
ideas. Next in importance are contemporary memoirs and 
letters including those of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, 
Grimm, Morellet, Marmontel, Mme. d'Epinay, Naigeon, 
Garat, Galiani, Hume, Garrick, Wilkes, Romilly and others ; 
and scattered letters by Holbach himself, largely to his 
English friends. In addition there is a large body of con- 
temporary hostile criticism of his books, by Voltaire; Fred- 
erick II, Castillon, Holland, La Harpe, Delisle de Sales and 
a host of outraged ecclesiastics, so that one is well informed in 
regard to the scandal that his books caused at the time. Out 
of these materials and other scattered documents and no- 
tices it is possible to reconstruct — though somewhat defec- 
tively — the figure of a man who played an important role in 
his own day; but whose name has long since lost its signifi- 
cance — even in the ears of scholars. It is at the suggestion 
of Professor James Harvey Robinson that this reconstruc- 
tion has been made. If it shall prove of any interest or 
value he must be credited with the initiation of the idea as 
well as constant aid in its realization. For rendering pos- 
sible the necessary investigations, recognition is due to the 
administration and officers of the Bibliotheque Nationale, the 
British Museum, the Library of Congress, the Libraries of 
Columbia and Harvard Universities, Union and Andover 
Theological Seminaries, and the Public Libraries of Boston 
and New York. 

M. P. C. 

New York City, 
July, 1914. 



CHAPTER I 

HOLBACH, THE MAN 

Paul Heinrich Dietrich, or as he is better known, Paul- 
Henri Thiry, baron d'Holbach, was born in January, 1723, 
in the little village of Heidelsheim (N.W. of Carlsruhe) in 
the Palatinate. Of his parentage and youth nothing is 
known except that his father, a rich parvenu, according to 
Rousseau, 5 brought him to Paris at the age of twelve, where 
he received the greater part of his education. His father 
died when Holbach was still a young man. It may be 
doubted if young Holbach inherited his title and estates 
immediately as there was an uncle " Messire Francois- 
Adam, Baron d'Holbach, Seigneur de Heeze, Leende et 
autres Lieux" who lived in the rue Neuve S. Augustin and 
died in 1753. His funeral was held at Saint-Roch, his 
parish church, Thursday, September 16th, where he was 
afterward entombed. 6 Holbach was a student in the Uni- 
versity of Ley den in 1746 and spent a good deal of time at 
his uncle's estate at Heeze, a little town in the province of 
North Brabant (S.E. of Eindhoven). He also travelled 
and studied in Germany. There are two manuscript letters 
in the British Museum (Folio 30867, pp. 14, 18, 20) ad- 
dressed by Holbach to John Wilkes, which throw some light 
on his school-days. It is interesting to note that most of 
Holbach's friends were young Englishmen of whom there 
were some twenty-five at the University of Ley den at that 

5 Confessions, Oeuvres, Vol. XXIV, p. 338. 

6 Bib. Nat. mss. Pieces originates, 1529, d'Holbach, 34, 861. 

5 



6 BARON D'HOLBACH 

time. 7 Already at the age of twenty-three Holbach was 
writing very good English, and all his life he was a friend 
of Englishmen and English ideas. His friendship for 
Wilkes, then a lad of nineteen, lasted all his life and in- 
creased in intimacy and dignity. The two letters following 
are of interest because they are the only documents we have 
bearing on Holbach's early manhood. They reveal a cer- 
tain sympathy and feeling — rather gushing to be sure, — 
quite unlike anything in his later writings, and quite out of 
line with the supposedly cold temper of a materialist and an 
atheist. 8 

Holbach to Wilkes 

Heeze Aug. 9, 1746 
Dearest Friend 

I should not have felt by half enough the pleasure your kind 
letter gave me, If I had words to express it ; I never doubted 
of your friendship, nor I hope do you know me so little as to 
doubt of mine, but your letter is full of such favorable senti- 
ments to me that I must own I cannot repay them but by re- 
newing to you the entire gift of my heart that has been yours 
ever since heaven favour'd me with your acquaintance. I 
need not tell you the sorrow our parting gave me, in vain 
Philosophy cried aloud nature was still stronger and the phi- 
losopher was forced to yield to the friend, even now I feel the 
wound is not cur'd. Therefore no more of that — Hope is 
my motto. Telling me you are happy you make me so but in 
the middle of your happiness you dont forget your friend, 
What flattering thought to me! Such are the charms of 

7 Carlyle, Rev. Dr. A., Autobiography, ed. Burton, Boston, 1861, p. 
137 sq. for Holbach's English friends mentioned in his letters to 
Wilkes. 

8 These letters, contrary to modern usage, are printed with all the 
peculiarities of eighteenth century orthography. It was felt that they 
would lose their quaintness and charm if Holbach's somewhat fantastic 
English were trifled with or his spelling, capitalization and punctuation 
modernized. 



THE MAN 7 

friendship every event is shar'd and nothing nor even the 
greatest intervals are able to interrupt the happy harmony of 
truly united minds. I left Leyden about 8 or 10 days after 
you but before my departure I thought myself obliged to let 
M r Dowdenwell know what you told me, he has seen the two 
letters M r Johnson had received and I have been mediator of y e 
peace made betwixt the 2 parties, I don't doubt but you have 
seen by this time Mess rs Bland & Weatherill who were to set 
out for Engelland the same week I parted with them. When I 
was leaving Leyden M r Vernon happen'd to tell me he had a 
great mind to make a trip to Spa. So my uncles' estate being 
on y e road I desir'd him to come along with me, he has been 
here a week and went on afterwards in his journey, at my 
arrival here, I found that General Count Palfi with an infinite 
number of military attendants had taken possession of my 
uncles' house, and that the 16 thous d men lately come from 
Germany to strengthen the allies army, commanded by Count 
Bathiani and that had left y e neighborhood of Breda a few 
days before and was come to Falkenswert (where you have 
past in your Journey to Spa) one hour from hence. Prince 
Charles arrived here the same day from Germany to take y e 
command of the allies, the next Day the whole army amounting 
to 70th d men went on towards the county of Liege to prevent 
the French from beseiging Namur, I hear now that the two 
armies are only one hour from another, so we expect very soon 
the news of a great battle but not without fear, Count Saxes 
army being, by all account of hundred ten thou d - men besides. 
Prince Counti's army of 50 th d - this latter General is now em- 
ploy'd at the siege of Charleroy. that can't resist a long while, 
it is a report that the King of France is arrived in his army, 
I hope this long account will entertain you for want of news 
papers : Mr. Dowdeswell being left alone of our club at Ley- 
den I Desir'd him to come and spend with me the time of his 
vacations here, which proposal I hope he will accept and be 
here next week. What happy triumvirat would be ours if you 
were to join: but that is impossible at present; however those 



3 BARON D'HOLBACH 

who cant enjoy reality are fond of feeding their fancies with 
agreable Dreams and charming pictures ; that helps a little to 
sooth the sorrow of absence and makes one expect with more 
pati[ence] till fortune allows him to put in execution the 
cherish'd systems he has been fed upon fore some [time] I 
shall expect with great many thanks the books you are to send 
me ; it will be for me a dubble pleasure to read them, being of 
your choice which I value as much as it deserves, and looking 
at them as upon a new proof of your benevolence, as to those 
I design'd to get from Paris for you, I heard I could not get 
them before my uncles' return hither all commerce being stopt 
by the way betwixt this country and France. 

A few days before my departure from Leyden I receiv'd a 
letter from M r Freeman from Berlin, he seams vastly pleas'd 
with our Germany, and chiefly with Hambourg where a beau- 
tiful lady has taken in his heart the room of poor M S£L Vitsia- 
vius, my prophesy was just ; travelling seems to have alter 'd a 
good deal his melancholy disposition as I may conjecture by his 
way of writing, he desired his service to you. As to me, Idle- 
ness renders me every day more philosopher every passion is 
languishing within me, I retain but one in a warm degree, viz, 
friendship in which you share no small part. I took a whim to 
study a little Physic accordingly I purchased several books in 
that Way. and my empty hours here are employ'd with them 
I am sure your time will be much better employ'd at Alesbury 
you'll find there a much nobler entertainment Cupid is by far 
Lovlier than Esculapius, however I shall not envy your happi- 
ness, in the Contrary I wish that all your desires be crown'd 
with success, that a Passion that proves fatal to great many of 
men be void of sorrow for you, that all the paths of love be 
spred over with flowers in one Word that you may not address 
in vain to the charming M ss - M. I am almost tempted to fall 
in love with that unknown beauty, 't would not be quite like 
Don Quixotte for your liking to her would be for me a very 
strong prejudice of her merit, which the poor Knight had not 
in his love for Dulcinea. 



THE MAN 9 

I shall not ask your pardon for the length of this letter I 
am sure friendship will forgive the time I steal to Love how- 
ever I cannot give up so easily a conversation with a true friend 
with whom I fancy to speak yet in one of those delightfull 
evening walks at Leyden. it is a dream, I own it, but it is so 
agreable one to me that nothing but reality could be compared 
to the pleasure I feel : let me therefore insist a little more 
upon't and travel with my Letter, we are gone ! I think to be 
at Alesbury! there I see my Dear Wilkes! What a Flurry 
of Panions! Joy! fear of a second parting! what charming 

tears ! what sincere Kisses ! but time flows and the end 

of this Love is now as unwelcome to me, as would be to another 
to be awaken'd in the middle of a Dream wherein he is going 
to enjoy a beloved mistress; the enchantment ceases, the de- 
lightfull images vanish, and nothing is left to me but friendship, 
which is of all my possessions the fairest, and the surest, I am 
most sincerely Dear Wilkes 

Your affectionate friend 
and humble servant 
De Holbach 
Heze the 9th august 1746 N. S. 

I shall expect with impatience the letter you are to write me 
from Alesbury. Will it be here very soon ! 

Holbach to Wilkes 

[Heeze Dec. 3rd. 1746] 
Dearest Wilkes 

During a little voyage I have made into Germany I have 
received your charming letter of the 8th. September O. S. the 
many affairs I have been busy with for these 3 months has 
hindered me hitherto from returning to you as speedy an 
answer as I should have done. I know too much your kind- 
ness for me to make any farther apology and I hope you are 
enough acquainted with the sincerety of my friendship towards 
you to adscribe my fault to forgetfulness or want of gratitude 



I0 BARON D'HOLBACH 

be sure, Dear friend, that such a disposition will allways be 
unknown to me in regard to you. I don't doubt but you will 
be by this time returned at London, the winter season being an 
obstacle to the pleasures you have enjoyed following y e Letter 
at Alesbury during the last Autumn. I must own I have felt 
a good deal of pride when you gave me the kind assurance that 
love has not made you forget an old friend, I need not tell you 
my disposition. I hope you know it well enough and like my 
friendship for you has no bounds I want expressions to show 
it. M r Dowdeswell has been so good as to let me enjoy his 
company here in the month of August, and returned to Leyden 
to pursue his studies in the middle of September We often 
wished your company and made sincere libations to you with bur- 
gundy and Champaign e I had a few weeks there after I -set out 
for Germany where I expected to spend the whole winter but 
the sudden death of my Uncle's Steward has forced me to come 
back here to put in order the affairs of this estate, I don't know 
how long I shall be obliged to stay in the meanwhile I act pretty 
well the part of a County Squire, id est, hunting, shooting, fish- 
ing, walking every day without to lay aside the ever charming 
conversation of Horace Virgil Homer and all our noble friends 
of the Elysian fields. They are allways faithfull to me, with 
their aid I find very well how to employ my time, but I want in 
this country a true bosom friend like my dear Wilkes to con- 
verse with, but my pretenssions are too high, for every abode 
with such a company would be heaven for me. 

I perceive by your last letter that your hopes are very like to 
succeed by M 88 Mead, you are sure that every happines that 
can befall to you will make me vastly happy. I beseech you 
therefore to let me know everytime how far you are gone, I 
take it to be a very good omen for you, that your lovely mis- 
tress out of compliance has vouchsafed to learn a harsh high- 
dutch name, which would otherwise have made her starttle, at 
the very hearing of it. I am very thankful for her kind desire 
of seeing me in Engelland which I dont wish the less but you 
know my circumstances enough, to guess that I cannot follow 



THE MAN II 

my inclinations. I have not heard hitherto anything about the 
books you have been so kind as to send me over by the oppor- 
tunity of a friend. I have wrote about it to M** 3 Conrad et 
Bouwer of Rotterdam, they answered that they were mot yet 
there. Nevertheless I am very much oblided to you for your 
kindness and wish to find very soon the opportunity of my 
revenge. M r Dowderswell complains very much of M re Bland 
and Weatherill, having not heard of them since their departure 
from Leyden. I desire my compliments to M r Dyer and all 
our old acquaintances. Pray be so good as to direct your first 
letter under the covert of M r Dowderwell at M s Alliaume's at 
Leyden he shall send it to me over immediately, no more at M r 
Van Sprang's like you used to do. I wish to know if M r Lyson 
since his return to his native country, continues in his peevish 
cross temper. If you have any news besides I'll be glad to hear 
them by your next which I expect very soon. 

About politicks I cannot tell you anything at present, you 
have heard enough by this time the fatal battle fought near 
Liege in 8 ber last ; everybody has little hopes of the Congress of 
Breda, the Austrian and Piedmontese are entered into prov- 
ence, which is not as difficult as to maintain themselves therein, 
I wish a speedy peace would enable us both to see the rejoicings 
that will attend the marriage of the Dauphin of France with a 
Princess of Saxony. I have heard that peace is made between 
England and Spain, which you ought to know better than I. 
We fear very much for the next campaign the siege of Maes- 
trich in our neighborhood. These are all the news I know. I'll 
tell you another that you have known a long while viz. that 
nobody is with more sincerity My Dear Wilkes 

Your faithfull humble Servant and Friend 
Holbach 
Heeze the 3 d X ber 1746 ns 

By I 75° Holbach was established in Paris as a young man 
of the world. His fortune, his learning, his sociability at- 
tracted the younger literary set toward him. In 1749 he 



12 BARON D'HOLBACH 

was already holding his Thursday dinners which later be- 
came so famous. Among his early friends were Diderot, 
Rousseau and Grimm. With them he took the side of the 
Italian Opera buff a in the famous musical quarrel of 1752, 
and published two witty brochures ridiculing French music. 9 
He was an art connoisseur and bought Oudry's Chienne 
allaitant ses petits, the chef d'oeuvre of the Salon of 1753. 10 
During these years he was hard at work at his chosen sci- 
ences of chemistry and mineralogy. In 1752 he published 
in a huge volume in quarto with excellent plates, a transla- 
tion of Antonio Neri's Art of Glass making and in 1753 
a translation of Wallerius' Mineralogy. On July 26, 1754, 
The Academy of Berlin made him a foreign associate in 
recognition of his scholarly attainments in Natural His- 
tory, 11 and later he was elected to the Academies of St. 
Petersburg and Mannheim. 

All that was now lacking to this brilliant young man 
was an attractive wife to rule over his salon. His friends 
urged him to wed, and in 1753 he married Mile. Basile- 
Genevieve-Susanne d'Aine, daughter of " Maitre Marius- 
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas d'Aine, conseiller au Roi en son 
grand conseil, associe externe de l'Acad. des sciences et 
belles lettres de Prusse." 12 M. d'Aine was also Maitre des 
Requetes and a man of means. Mme. d'Holbach was a 
very charming and gracious woman and Holbach's good 
fortune seemed complete when suddenly Mme. d'Holbach 
died from a most loathsome and painful disease in the sum- 
mer of 1754. Holbach was heart-broken and took a trip 
through the provinces with his friend Grimm, to whom 
he was much attached, to distract his mind from his grief. 

9 See Chap. II and Bibliography, Pt. I, for these and his other works. 

10 Grimm Cor. Lit., Vol. II, p. 283. 

11 Gazette de France, Aug. 10, 1754. 

12 Jal, Diet. Critique, p. 685. 



THE MAN 13 

He returned in the early winter and the next year 1755 got 
a special dispensation from the Pope to marry his deceased 
wife's sister, Mile. Charlotte-Susanne d'Aine. By her he 
had four children, two sons and two daughters. The first, 
Charles-Marius, was born about the middle of August, 1757, 
and baptized in Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Aug. 22. He 
inherited the family title and was a captain in the regiment 
of the Schomberg-Dragons. 13 The first daughter was born 
towards the end of 1758 and the second about the middle of 
Jan., 1760. 14 The elder married the Marquis de Chatenay 
and the younger the Marquis de Nolivos, " Captaine au 
regiment de la Seurre, Dragons." Their Majesties the 
King and Queen and the Royal Family signed their mar- 
riage contract May 27, 1781. 15 Of the second son there 
seem to be no traces. Holbach's mother-in-law, Madame 
d'Aine, was a very interesting old woman as she is pictured 
in Diderot's Memoires and there was a brother-in-law, 
" Messire Marius-Jean-Baptiste-Nicholas d'Aine, chevalier, 
conseiller du roi en ses conseils, Maitre des requetes hono- 
raire de son hotel, intendant de justice, police, et finances de 
la generalite de Tours," who lived in rue Saint Dominique, 

13 His career is somewhat doubtful. He travelled in Italy in 1779 
and Abbe Galiani, an old friend of Holbach's, got a very agreeable 
impression of him. John Wilkes, in a letter to his daughter in 1781, 
seems to imply that he had not turned out very well, and hopes that the 
baron's second son will make good the deficiencies of the first. In 
1806 he published a translation of Weiland's Oberon or Huon de 
Bordeaux which went thru another edition in 1825, but those are the 
only details that have come to light. 

14 Diderot, in writing to Mile Volland Sep. 17, 1760 says : " On nour- 
rit, a Chenvieres, les deux filles de Madame d'Holbach. L'ainee est 
belle comme un cherubin; c'est un visage rond, de grands yeux bleus, 
des levres fines, une bouche riante, la peau la plus blanche et la plus 
animee, des cheveux cha tains qui ceignent un tres joli front. La 
cadette est un peloton d'embonpoint ou Ton ne distingue encore que 
du blanc et du vermillion." 

15 Gazette de France, June 1, 1781. 



14 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



paroisse Saint-Sulpice. There was in Holbach's household 
for a long time an old Scotch surgeon, a homeless, misan- 
thropic old fellow by the name of Hope, of whom Diderot 
gives a most interesting account. 16 These are the only 
names we have of the personnel of Holbach's household. 
His town house was in the rue Royale, butte Saint-Roch. 
It was here that for an almost unbroken period of forty 
years he gave his Sunday and Thursday dinners. The latter 
day was known to the more intimate set of encyclopedists 
as the jour du synagogue. Here the eglise philosophique 
met regularly to discuss its doctrines and publish its propa- 
ganda of radicalism. 

Holbach had a very pleasant country seat, the chateau 
of Grandval, now in the arrondisement of Boissy St. Leger 
at Sucy-en-Brie. It is pleasantly situated in the valley of 
a little stream, the Morbra, which flows into the Marne. 
The property was really the estate of Mme. d'Aine who lived 
with the Holbachs. Here the family and their numerous 
guests passed the late summer and fall. Here Diderot 
spent weeks at a time working on the Encyclopedia, dining, 
and walking on the steep slopes of the Marne with con- 
genial companions. To him we are indebted for our in- 
timate knowledge of Grandval and its inhabitants, their 
slightest doings and conversations; and as Danou has well 
said if we were to wish ourselves back in any past age we 
should choose with many others the mid-eighteenth cen- 
tury and the charming society of Paris and Grandval. 17 

16 Holbach's intendant was Jew, Berlise. After his death several of 
his old servants Vincent, David, and Plocque, contested Holbach's will, 
in which they thought they were legatees. The case was in the courts 
for several years and was finally decided against them. Douarche, 
Les tribunaux civil de Paris pendant la revolution, Paris, 1905, Vol. I- 
pp. 141, 261, 325, 689. 

17 Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot, p. 5. 



THE MAN 15 

Holbach's life in common with that of most philosophers 
offers no events, except that he came near being killed in 
the crush and riot in the rue Royale that followed the fire 
at the Dauphin's wedding in 1770. 18 He was never an 
official personage. His entire life was spent in study, writ- 
ing and conversation with his friends. He travelled very 
little, the world came to him, to the Cafe de I'Europe, as 
Abbe Galiani called Paris. From time to time Holbach 
went to Contrexeville for his gout and once to England to 
visit David Garrick; but he disliked England very thor- 
oughly and was glad to get back to Paris. The events of 
his life, in so far as there were any, were his relations with 
people. He knew intimately practically all the great men of 
his century, except Montesquieu and Voltaire, who were off 
the stage before his day. 19 Holbach's most intimate and 
life-long friend among the great figures of the century was 
Diderot, of whom Rousseau said, "A la distance de quel- 
ques siecles du moment ou il a vecu, Diderot paraitra un 
homme prodigieux; on regardera de loin cette tete univer- 
sale avec une admiration melee d'etonnement, comme nous 
regardons aujourd'hui la tete des Platon et des Aristote." 20 
All his contemporaries agr?d that nothing was so charged 
with divine fire as the conversation of Diderot. Gautherin, 
in his fine bronze of him on the Place Saint-Germain-des- 
Pres, seems to have caught the spirit of his talk and has 
depicted him as he might have sat in the midst of Holbach's 
society, of which he was the inspiration and the soul. Hol- 
bach backed Diderot financially in his great literary and 
scientific undertaking and provided articles for the Ency- 

18 Critica, Vol. I, p. 48, note. 

19 He met Voltaire in Paris in 1778, however, and Naigeon relates 
that Voltaire greeted him very cordially and said that he had long 
desired to make his acquaintance. 

20 Collignon, Diderot, p. 1. 



16 BARON D'HOLBACH 

clopedia on chemistry and natural science. Diderot had a 
high opinion of his erudition and said of him, " Quelque 
systeme que forge mon imagination, je suis sur que mon 
ami d'Holbach me trouve des faits et des autorites pour le 
justifier." 21 Opinions differ in regard to the intellectual 
influence of these men upon each other. Diderot was with- 
out doubt the greater thinker, but Holbach stated his athe- 
ism with far greater clarity and Diderot gave his sanction 
to it by embellishing Holbach's books with a few eloquent 
pages of his own. Diderot said to Sir Samuel Romilly in 
1 78 1, "II faut sabrer la theologie," 22 and died in 1784 
in the belief that complete infidelity was the first step 
toward philosophy. Five years later Holbach was buried 
by his side in the crypt of the Chapel of the Virgin behind 
the high altar in Saint-Roch. No tablet marks their tombs, 
and although repeated investigations have been made no 
light has been thrown on the exact position of their burial 
place. According to Diderot's daughter, Mme. Vandeuil, 
their entire correspondence has been destroyed or lost. 23 

Holbach's relations with Rousseau were less harmonious. 
The account of their mutual misunderstandings contained in 
the Confessions, in a letter by Cerutti in the Journal de Paris 
Dec. 2, 1789, and in private letters of Holbach's to Hume, 
Garrick, and Wilkes, is a long and tiresome tale. The 
author of Eclaircissements relatifs a la publication des con- 
fessions de Rousseau . . . (Paris, 1789) blames the club 
holbachique for their treatment of Rousseau, but the fault 
seems to lie on both sides. According to Rousseau's ac- 
count, Holbach sought his friendship and for a few years 
he was one of Holbach's society. But, after the success of 

21 Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot, p. 75, note. 

22 Romilly, Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 179. 

23 Diderot, Oeuvres, Vol. I, p. lxvi, note. 



THE MAN 17 

the Devin du Village in 1753, the holbachiens turned against 
him out of jealousy of his genius as a composer. Visions 
of a dark plot against him rose before his fevered and 
sensitive imagination, and after 1756 he left the Society of 
the Encyclopedists, never to return. Holbach, on the other 
hand, while admitting rather questionable treatment of 
Rousseau, never speaks of any personal injury on his part, 
and bewails the fact that "l'homme le plus eloquent s'est 
rendu ainsi l'homme le plus anti-litteraire, et 1'homme le 
plus sensible s'est rendu le plus anti-social." 24 He did 
warn Hume against taking him to England, and in a letter 
to Wilkes predicted the quarrel that took place shortly after. 
In writing to Garrick 25 he says some hard but true things 
about Rousseau, who on his part never really defamed Hol- 
bach but depicted him as the virtuous atheist under the 
guise of Wolmar in the Nouvelle Helo'ise. Their personal 
incompatibility is best explained on the grounds of the 
radical differences in their temperaments and types of mind 
and by the fact that Rousseau was too sensitive to get on 
with anybody for any great length of time. 

Two other great Frenchmen, Buffon and d'Alembert, were 
for a time members of Holbach's society, but, for reasons 
that are not altogether clear, gradually withdrew. Grimm 
suggests that Buffon did not find the young philosophers 
sufficiently deferential to him and to the authorized powers, 
and feared for his dignity, — and safety, in their company. 
D'Alembert, on the other hand, was a recluse by nature, 
and, after giving up his editorship on the Encyclopedia, 
easily dropped out of Diderot's society and devoted him- 
self to Mile. Lespinasse and Mme. Geoffrin. Holbach and 
Helvetius were life-long friends and spent much time to- 

24 Journal de Paris, Dec. 2, 1789. 

25 See appendix, p. 73, p. 77. 



!8 BARON D'HOLBACH 

gether reading at Helvetius' country place at Vore. After 
his death in 1774, Holbach frequented Mme. Helvetius' salon 
where he knew and deeply influenced Volney, Cabanis, de 
Tracy, and the first generation of the Ideologists who con- 
tinued his and Helvetius' philosophical doctrines. Among 
the other Frenchmen of the day who were on intimate re- 
lations with Holbach and frequented his salon were La Con- 
damine, Condillac, Condorcet, Turgot, Morellet, Raynal, 
Grimm, Marmontel, Colardeau, Saurin, Suard, Saint-Lam- 
bert, Thomas, Duclos, Chastellux, Boulanger, Darcet, Roux, 
Rouelle, Barthes, Venel, Leroy, Damilaville, Naigeon, La- 
grange and lesser names, — but well known in Paris in the 
eighteenth century, — d'Alinville, Chauvelin, Desmahis, Gauf- 
fecourt, Margency, de Croismare, de Pezay, Coyer, de Val- 
ory, Charnoi, not to mention a host of others. 

Among Holbach's most intimate English friends were 
Hume, Garrick, Wilkes, Sterne, Gibbon, Horace Walpole, 
Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Priestley, Lord Shel- 
burne, Gen. Barre, Gen. Clark, Sir James MacDonald, Dr. 
Gem, Messrs. Stewart, Demster, Fordyce, Fitzmaurice, 
Foley, etc. Holbach addressed a letter to Hume in 1762, 
before making his acquaintance, in which he expressed his 
admiration of his philosophy and the desire to know him 
personally. 26 In 1764 Hume came to Paris as secretary of 
the British Embassy and immediately called on Holbach and 
became a regular frequenter of his salon. It was to Hol- 
bach that he wrote first on the outbreak of his quarrel with 
Rousseau and they corresponded at length in regard to the 
publication of the Expose succinct, which was to justify 
Hume in the eyes of the French. Hume and Holbach had 
much in common intellectually, although the latter was far 
more thoroughgoing in his repudiation of Theism. 

26 See appendix, p. 71. 



THE MAN 19 

David Gar rick and his wife were frequent visitors at the 
rue Royale on their trips to Paris where they were very 
much liked by Holbach's society. Nothing is more cordial 
or gracious than the compliments passed between them in 
their subsequent correspondence. There are two published 
letters from Holbach in Mr. Hedgecock's recent study of 
Garrick and his French friends, excellent examples of the 
happy spontaneity and sympathy that were characteristic 
of French sociability in the eighteenth century. 27 Hqlbach 
in turn spent several months with Garrick at Hampton. 

Holbach's early friendship for Wilkes has already been 
mentioned. Wilkes spent a great deal of time in Paris on 
the occasion of his exiles from England and became very 
intimate with Holbach. They corresponded up to the very 
end of Holbach's life and there was a constant interchange 
of friendly offices betwen them. 28 Miss Wilkes, who spent 
much time in Paris, was a very good friend of Mme. Hol- 
bach and Mile. Helvetius. Adam Smith often dined at 
Holbach's with Turgot and the economists; Gibbon also 
found his dinners agreeable except for the dogmatism of 
the atheists; Walpole resented it also and kept away. 
Priestley seems to have gotten on very well, although the 
philosophers found his materialism and unitarianism a trifle 
inconsistent. It was at Holbach's that Shelburne met Morel- 
let with whom he carried on a long and serious correspond- 
ence on economics. There seem to be no details of Hol- 
bach's relations with Franklin, who was evidently more 
assiduous at the salon of Mme. Helvetius whom he desired 
to marry. 

Holbach's best friend among the Italians was Abbe Gali- 
ani, secretary of the Neapolitan Embassy, who spent ten 

27 See appendix, p. 72. 

28 See p. 6 sq. and appendix pp. 75 sq. 



20 BARON D'HOLBACH 

years in the salons of Paris. After his return to Naples his 
longing for Paris led him to a voluminous correspondence 
with his French friends including Holbach. A few of their 
letters are extant. Beccaria also came to Paris at the in- 
vitation of the translator of his Crimes and Punishments, 
Abbe Morellet, made on behalf of Holbach and his society. 
Beccaria and his friend Veri, who accompanied him, had 
long been admirers of French philosophy, and the French- 
men found much to admire in Beccaria's book. One avocat 
general, M. Servan of the Parlement of Bordeaux, a friend 
of Holbach's, tried to put his reforms in practice and shared 
the fate of most reformers. Holbach was also in corre- 
spondence with Beccaria, and one of his letters has been 
published in M. Landry's recent study of Beccaria. 

Among the other Italians whom Holbach befriended were 
Paulo Frizi, the mathematician; Dr. Gatti; Pincini, the 
musician; and Mme. Riccoboni, ex-actress and novelist; 
whose lively correspondence with Garrick whom she met at 
Holbach's sheds much light on the social relations of the 
century. 

Among the other foreigners who were friends or ac- 
quaintances of Holbach were his fellow countrymen, Fred- 
erich Melchon Grimm, like himself a naturalized French- 
man and the bosom friend of Diderot; Meister, his collabo- 
rator in the Literary Correspondence; Kohant, a Bohemian 
musician, composer of the Bergere des Alpes and Mme. 
Holbach's lute-teacher; Baron Gleichen, Comte de Creutz, 
Danish and Scandinavian diplomats; and a number of Ger- 
man nobles; the hereditary princes of Brunswick and Saxe 
Gotha, Baron Alaberg, afterwards elector of Mayence, 
Baron Schomberg and Baron Studitz. 

Among the well known women of the century Holbach 
was most intimate with Mme. d'Epinay, who became a very 



THE MAN 21 

good friend of Mme. Holbach's and was present at the birth 
of her first son, and, in her will, left her a portrait by Rem- 
brandt. He was also a friend of Mme. Geoffrin, attended 
her salon, and knew Mile, de Lespinasse, Mme. Houderot 
and most of the important women of the day. 

There are excellent sources from which to form an esti- 
mate of this man whose house was the social centre of the 
century. Just after Holbach's death on January 21, 1789, 
Naigeon, his literary agent, who had lived on terms of the 
greatest intimacy with him for twenty- four years, wrote a 
long eulogy which filled the issue of the Journal de Paris for 
Feb. 9. There was another letter to the Journal on Feb. 12. 
Grimm's Correspondence Litter aire for March contains a 
long account of him by Meister, and there are other notices 
in contemporary memoirs such as Morellet's and Marmon- 
tel's. All these accounts agree in picturing him as the most 
admirable of men. 

It must be remembered that Holbach always enjoyed 
what was held to be a considerable fortune in his day. 
From his estates in Westphalia he had a yearly income 
of 60,000 livres which he spent in entertaining. This 
freedom from economic pressure gave him leisure to de- 
vote his time to his chosen intellectual pursuits and to his 
friends. He was a universally learned man. He knew 
French, German, English, Italian and Latin extremely well 
and had a fine private library of about three thousand works 
often of several volumes each, in these languages and in 
Greek and Hebrew. The catalogue of this library was pub- 
lished by Debure in 1789. It would be difficult to imagine a 
more comprehensive and complete collection of its size. He 
had also a rich collection of drawings by the best masters, 
fine pictures of which he was a connoisseur, bronzes, marbles, 
porcelains and a natural history cabinet, so in vogue in 



22 BARON D'HOLBACH 

those days, containing some very valuable specimens. He 
was one of the most learned men of his day in natural 
science, especially chemistry and mineralogy, and to his 
translations from the best German scientific works is largely 
due the spread of scientific learning in France in the eigh- 
teenth century. Holbach was also very widely read in 
English theology and philospohy of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries and derived his anti-theological inspira- 
tion from these two sources. To this vast fund of learning, 
he joined an extreme modesty and simplicity. He sought no 
academic honors, published all his works anonymously, and, 
had it not been for the pleasure he took in communicating 
his ideas to his friends, no one would have suspected his 
great erudition. He had an extraordinary memory and 
the reputation of never forgetting anything of interest. 
This plenitude of information, coupled with his easy and 
pleasant manner of talking, made his society much sought 
after. Naigeon said of him (in his preface to the works of 
Lagrange) : 

Personne n'etait plus communicatif que M. le baron d'Hol- 
bach; personne ne prenait aux progres de la raison un interet 
plus vif, plus sincere, et ne s'occupait avec plus de zele et l'ac- 
tivite des moyens de les accelerer. 

Egalement verse dans la plupart des matieres sur lesquelles 
il importe le plus a des etres raisonnables d'avoir une opinion 
arretee, M. le boron d'Holbach portait dans leur discussion un 
jugement sain, une logique severe, et une analyse exacte et pre- 
cise. Quelque fut l'objet de ses entretiens avec ses amis, ou meme 
avec des indifferens, tels qu'en offrent plus ou moins toutes 
les societes ; il inspirait sans effort a ceux qui l'ecoutaient l'en- 
thousiasme de l'art ou de la science dont il parlait ; et on ne le 
quittait jamais sans regretter de n'avoir pas cultive la branche 
particuliere de connaissances qui avait fait le sujet de la con- 
versation, sans desirer d'etre plus instruit, plus eclaire, et sur- 



THE MAN 23 

tout sans admirer la clarte, la justesse de son esprit, et l'ordre 
dans lequel il savait presenter ses idees. 

This virtue of communicativeness, of sociabilite, Hol- 
bach carried into all the relations of life. He was always 
glad to lend or give his books to anyone who could make 
use of them. "Je suis riche," he used to say, "mais je ne 
vois dans la fortune qu'un instrument de plus pour operer le 
bien plus promptement et plus efficacement." In fact Hol- 
bach's whole principle of life and action was to increase the 
store of human well being. And he did this without any 
religious motive whatsoever. As Julie says of Wolmar in 
La Nouvelle Heloise, " II fait le bien sans espoir de recom- 
pense, il est plus vertueux, plus desinteresse que nous. ,, 
There are many recorded instances of Holbach's gracious 
benevolence. As he said to Helvetius, " Vous etes brouille 
avec tous ceux que vous avez oblige, mais j'ai garde tous mes 
amis." Holbach had the faculty of attaching people to him. 
Diderot tells how at the Salon of 1753 after Holbach had 
bought Oudry's famous picture, all the collectors who had 
passed it by came to him and offered him twice what he 
paid for it. Holbach went to find the artist to ask him per- 
mission to cede the picture to his profit, but Oudry refused, 
saying that he was only too happy that his best work be- 
longed to the man who was the first to appreciate it. In- 
stances of Holbach's liberality to Kohant, a poor musician, 
and to Suard, a poor literary man, are to be found in the 
pages of Diderot and Meister, and his constant generosity 
to his friends is a commonplace in their Memoirs and Cor- 
respondence. Only Rousseau was ungrateful enough to 
complain that Holbach's free-handed gifts insulted his pov- 
erty. His kindness to Lagrange, a young literary man 
whom he rescued from want, has been well told by M. 
Naigeon in the preface to the works of Lagrange (p. xviii). 

But perhaps the most touching instances of Holbach's be- 



24 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



nevolence are his relations with the peasants of Contrexevlle, 
one of which was published in the Journal de Lecture, 177$, 
the other in an anonymous letter to the Journal de Paris, 
Feb. 12, 1789. The first concerns the reconciliation of two 
old peasants who, not wanting to go to court, brought their 
differences to their respected friend for a settlement. Noth- 
ing is more simple and beautiful than this homely tale as told 
in a letter of Holbach's to a friend of his. The second, 
which John Wilkes said ought to be written in letters of 
gold, deserves to be reproduced as a whole. 

L'eloge funebre que M. Naigeon a consacre a la memoire de 
M. le Baron d'Holbach suffit pour donner une idee juste de ses 
lumieres, mais le hazard m'a mis a portee de les juger encore 
mieux. J'ai vu M. le Baron d'Holbach dans deux voyages que 
j'ai faits aux eaux de Contrexeville. S'occuper de sa souffrance 
et de sa guerison, e'est le soin de chaque malade. M. le Baron 
d'Holbach devenait le medecin, l'ami, le consolateur de quicon- 
que venait aux eaux et il semblait bien moins occupe de ses in- 
firmites que de celles des autres. Lorsque des malades indigens 
manquaient de secours, ou pecuniaires ou curatifs, il les leur 
procurait avec un plaisir qui lui faisait plus de bien que les eaux. 
Je me promenais un soir avec lui sur une hauteur couverte d'un 
massif de bois qui fait perspective de loin et pres duquel s'eleve 
un petit Hermitage. La, demeure un cenobite qui n'a de revenu 
que les aumones de ceux dont il regoit les visites. Nous acquit- 
tames chacun notre dette hospitaliere. En prenant conge de 
l'Hermite, M. le Baron d'Holbach me dit de le preceder un 
instant et qu'il allait me suivre. Je le precedai, et comme il ne 
me suivait pas je m'arretai, pour l'attendre sur un terte ex- 
hausse d'ou Ton decouvre tout le pays. Je contemplais le canton 
que je dominais, plonge dans une douce reverie. J'en fus tire 
par des cris et je me retournai vers l'endroit d'ou ils partaient. 
Je vis M. le Baron d'Holbach environne d'une vieille femme et 
de deux villageois, Tun vieux comme elle et l'autre jeune. Tous 
trois, les larmes aux yeux, l'embrassaient hautement. Allez- 



THE MAN 25 

vous-en done, s'ecrait M. le Baron d'Holbach; laissez moi, on 
m'attend, ne me suivez pas, adieu ; je reviendrai l'anne pro- 
chaine. En me voyant arriver vers eux, les trois personnes 
reconnaissantes disparurent. Je lui demandai le sujet de tant 
de benedictions. Ce jeune paysan que vous avez vu s'etait 
engage, j'ai obtenu de son colonel sa liberte en payant les cents 
ecus presents par l'ordonnance. II est amoureux d'une jeune 
paysanne aussi pauvre que lui, je viens d'acheter pour eux un 
petit bien qui m'a coute huit cent francs. Le vieux pere est 
perclus, aux deux bras, de rhumatismes, je lui ai fourni trois 
boites du baume des Valdejeots, si estime en ce pays-ci. La 
vieille mere est sujette a des maux d'estomac, et je lui ai ap- 
porte un pot de confection d'hyacinthe. lis travaillaient dans 
le champ, voisin du bois, je suis alle les voir tandis que vous 
marchiez en avant. lis m'ont suivi malgre moi. Ne parlez de 
cela a personne. On dirait que je veux faire le genereux et le 
bon philosophe, mais je ne suis que humain, et mes charites 
sont la plus agreable depense de mes voyages. 

This humanity of Holbach's is the very keynote of his 
character and of his intellectual life as well. As M. Wal- 
ferdin has said, the denial of the supernatural was for him 
the base of all virtue, and resting on this principle, he exem- 
plified social qualities that do the greatest honor to human 
nature. He and Madame Holbach are the only conspicuous 
examples of conjugal fidelity and happiness among all the 
people that one has occasion to mention in a study of the 
intellectual and literary circles of the eighteenth century. 
They were devoted to each other, to their children and to 
their friends. Considering the traits of Holbach's character 
that have been cited, there can scarcely be two opinions in 
regard to completeness with which he realized his ideal of 
humanity and sociability. M. Naigeon has well summed up 
in a few words Holbach's relation to the only duties that he 
recognized, " He was a good husband, a good father and a 
good friend." 



CHAPTER II 

HOLBACH'S WORKS 

Holbach's published works, with the exception of a few 
scattered ones, may be divided into three classes, viz., trans- 
lations of German scientific works, translations of English 
deistical writings, and his own works on theology, philos- 
ophy, politics and morals. Those which fall into none of 
these categories can be dealt with very summarily. They 
are: 

i. Two pamphlets on the musical dispute of 1752; Lettre 
a une dame d'un certain age sur Vetat present de V Opera, 
(8vo, pp. n,) and Arret rendu a V amphitheatre de V Opera, 
(8vo, pp. 16,) both directed against French music and in line 
with Grimm's Petit Prophet and Rousseau's Lettre sur la 
musique francaise. 

2. A translation in prose of Akenside's The Pleasures of 
Imagination (Paris, 1759, 8vo). 

3. A translation of Swift's History of the Reign of Queen 
Anne in collaboration with M. Eidous (Amsterdam, 1765, 
i2mo, pp. xxiv + 416). 

4. Translations of an Ode on Human Life and a Hymn 
to the Sun in the Varietes litter aires (1768). 

5. Articles on natural science in the Encyclopedic and 
article Prononciation dcs langues in the Dictionnaire de 
Grammaire of the Encyclopedic methodique. 

6. Translation of Waller ius' Agriculture reduced to its 
true principles (Paris, 1774, i2mo). 

7. Two Faceties philosopJtiques published in Grimm's 

26 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 27 

Correspondence Litter aire. L'Abbe et le Rabbin, and Essai 
sur Vart de ramper, a V usage des courtisans. 

8. Parts of Raynal's Histoire philosophique des deux 
Indes. 

9. Notes to Lagrange's Vie de Seneque. 

Holbach's translations of German scientific works are as 
follows : (Complete titles to be found in Bibliography, Pt. I. 

1. Art de la Verrerie de Neri, Merret, et Kunckel (Paris, 
Durand, 1752). Original work in Italian. Latin translation 
by Christopher Merret. German translation by J. Kunckel 
of Lowenstern. Holbach's translation comprises the seven 
books of Antionio Neri, Merret's notes on Neri, Kunckel's 
observations on both these authors, his own experiments and 
others relative to glass-making. The translation was ded- 
icated to Malesherbes who had desired to see the best Ger- 
man scientific works published in French. In his Preface 
du Traducteur Holbach writes : — 

L'envie de me rendre utile, dont tout citoyen doit etre anime, 
m'a fait entreprendre l'ouvrage que je presente au Public. S'il 
a le bonheur de meriter son approbation, quoiqu'il y ait peu de 
gloire attachee au travail ingrat et fastidieux d'un Traducteur, 
je me determinerai a donner les meilleurs ouvrages allemands, 
sur l'Histoire Naturelle, la Mineralogie, la Metallurgie et la 
Chymie. Tout le monde sgait que l'Allemagne possede en ce 
genre des tresors qui ont ete jusqu'ici comme enfouis pour la 
France. 

2. Mineralogie ou Description generale du regne mineral 
par J. G. Wallerius (Paris, Durand, 1753) followed by 
Hydrologie by the same author. Second edition, Paris, 
Herrissant, 1759. Originally in Swedish (Wallerius was 
a professor of chemistry in the University of Upsala). 
German translation by J. D. Denso, Professor of Chemistry, 



28 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Stargard, Pomerania. Holbach's translation was made 
from the German edition which Wallerius considered prefer- 
able to the Swedish. He was assisted by Bernard de Jussien 
and Rouelle, and the work was dedicated to a friend and co- 
worker in the natural sciences, Monsieur d'Arclais de Mon- 
tamy, 

3. Introduction a la Miner alogie . . . oeuvre posthume de 
M. J. F. Henckel, Paris, Cavelier, 1756, first published under 
title Henckelius in Miner alogia redivivus, Dresden, 1 747, by 
his pupil, M. Stephani, as an outline of his lectures. Hol- 
bach's translation made from a German edition, corrected, 
with notes on new discoveries added. 

4. Chimie metallurgique . . . par M. C. Gellert. Paris, 
Briasson, 1758, translated earlier. Approbation May 1, 
1753, Privelege Dec. 21, 1754. Originally a text written 
by Gellert for four artillery officers whom the King of Sar- 
dinia sent to Freyburg to learn mining-engineering. 

5. Traites de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de miner alogie 
et de metallurgie. Paris, Herrissant, 1759, by J- G. Leh- 
mann, three vols. I. L'Art des Mines, II. Traite de la for- 
mation des metaux, III. Essai d'une histoire naturelle des 
couches de la terre. In his preface to the third volume 
Holbach has some interesting remarks about the deluge, the 
irony of which seems to have escaped the royal censor, 
Millet, Docteur en Theologie. 

" La description si precise et si detaillee que Moise fait 
du Deluge dans la Genese, ayant une autorite inf aillible, puis 
qu'elle n'est autre que celle de Dieu meme, nous rend cer- 
tains de la realite et de l'universalite de ce chatiment terrible. 
II s'agit simplement d'examiner si les naturalistes, tels que 
Woodward, Schenchzer, Buttner et M. Lehmann lui-meme 
ne se sont points trompes, lorsqu'ils ont attribue a cet evene- 
ment seul la formation des couches de la terre et lorsqu'ils 
s'en sont servis pour expliquer l'etat actuel de notre globe. 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 29 

II semble que rien ne doit nous empecher d'agiter cette ques- 
tion; l'Ecriture sainte se contente de nous apprendre la voie 
miraculeuse dont Dieu s'est servi pour punir les crimes du 
genre humain; elle ne dit rien qui puisse limiter les senti- 
ments des naturalists sur les autres efTets physiques que le 
deluge a pu produire. C'est une matiere qu'elle paroit avoir 
abandonnee aux disputes des hommes." He then proceeds 
to question whether the deluge could have produced the re- 
sults attributed to it and argues against catastrophism which, 
it must be remembered, was the received geological doctrine 
down to the days of Lyell. "Les causes les plus simples 
sont capables de produire au bout des siecles les efTets les 
plus grands, surtout lorsqu'elles agissent incessament; et 
nous voyons toutes ces causes reunies agir perpetuellement 
sous nos yeux. Concluons, done, de tout ce qui precede, 
que le deluge seul et les feux souterrains seuls ne suffisent 
point pour expliquer la formation des couches de la terre. 
On risquera tou jours de se tromper, lorsque par Fenvie de 
simplifier on voudra deriver tous les phenomenes de la nature 
d'une seule et unique cause." 

6. Pyritologie by J. F. Henkel, Paris, Herrissant, 1760, a 
large volume in quarto, translated by Holbach. It contains 
Flora Saturnisans (translated by M. Charas and reviewed 
by M. Roux), Henkel's Opuscules Miner alogiques and 
other treatises. Original editions : Pyritologia, Leipzig, 1725, 
1754; Flora Saturnizans, Leipzig, 1721 ; De Appropriation 
Chymica, Dresden, 1727, and De Lapidum origine, Dresden, 
1734, translated into German, with excellent notes, Dresden, 
1744, by M. C. F. Zimmermann, a pupil of M. Henkel. Hol- 
bach's translations seem to have been well received because 
he writes in this preface : " Je m'estimerai heureux si mon 
travail peut contribuer a entretenir et augmenter le gout 
universel qu'on a congu pour le saine physique. 

7. Oeuvres metallurgiques de M. J. C. Orschall, Paris, 



3 o BARON D'HOLBACH 

Hardy, 1760. Orschall still accepted the old alchemist 
tradition but was sound in practice and was the best author- 
ity on copper. Holbach does not attempt to justify his 
physics which was that of the preceding century. Orschall 
was held in high esteem by Henckel and Stahl. 

8. Recueil des memoir es des Academies d'Upsal et de 
Stockholm, Paris, Didot, 1764. These records of experi- 
ments made in the Royal Laboratories of Sweden, founded 
in 1683 by Charles XI, had already been translated into 
German and English. Holbach's translation was made 
from the German and Latin. He promises further treatises 
on Agriculture, Natural History and Medicine. 

9. Traite du Sonfre by G. E. Stahl, Paris, Didot, 1766. 
In speaking of Stahl's theories Holbach says : " II ne faut 
pas croire que ces connaissances soient des verites steriles 
propres seulement a satis f aire une vaine curiosite, elles 
ont leur application aux travaux de la metallurgie qui leur 
doivent la perfection ou on les a portes depuis quelques 
terns." Holbach understood very clearly the utility of 
science in his scheme of increasing the store of human well- 
being, and would doubtless have translated other useful 
works had not other interests prevented. There is a mss. 
note of his in the Bibliotheque Nationale to M. Malesherbes, 
then Administrateur de la Librairie Royale, suggesting other 
German treatises that might well be translated. 1 (Mss. 
22194). 

1 Holbach to Malesherbes 

Monsieur 

J'ai l'honneur de vous envoyer ci-joint la liste des ouvrages dont M. 

Liege fils pourrait entreprendre la traduction. Je n'en connais actuelle- 

ment point d'autres qui meritent l'attention du public. M. Macquer 

m'a ecrit une lettre qui a pour objet les memes choses dont vous m'avez 

fait l'honneur de me parler, et je lui fais la meme reponse. 

J'ai l'honneur d'etre avec respect, Monsieur, 

Votre tres obeissant serviteur 

' Po • , ,, ., , D'Holbach 

a Fans ce 6 d avnl 1761 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 31 

The list of books was as follows : 

1. Johann Kunckel's Labor atorium Chymicum, 8vo. 

2. Georg Ernest Stahl's Commentary on Becker's Metal- 
lurgy, 8vo. 

3. Concordantia Chymica Becheri, 4 , published by Stahl. 

4. Cadmologia, or the Natural History of Cobalt, by J. 
G. Lehmann, Berlin, 1760, 4 . 

After 1760 Holbach became interested in another line of 
intellectual activity, namely the writing and translation of 
anti-religious literature. His first book of this sort really 
appeared in 1761 although no copies bear this date. From 
1767 on however he published a great many works of this 
character. It is convenient to deal first with his transla- 
tions of English deistical writers. They are in chronolog- 
ical order. 

1. Esprit du clerge, ou le Christianisme primitif venge des 
entreprises et des exces de nos Pretres modernes. Londres 
(Amsterdam), 1767. This book appeared in England in 
1720 under the title of The Independent Whig, its author 
was Thomas Gordon (known through his Commentaries on 
Sallust and Tacitus) who wrote in collaboration with John 
Trenchard. The book was partially rewritten by Holbach 
and then touched up by Naigeon, who, according to a 
manuscript note by his brother, "atheised it as much as 
possible." It was sold with great secrecy and at a high 
price, — a reward which the colporters demanded for the risk 
they ran in peddling seditious literature. The book was a 
violent attack on the spirit of domination which character- 
ized the Christian priesthood at that time. 

2. De U imposture sacerdotale, ou Recueil de Pieces sur le 
clerge, Londres (Amsterdam), 1767. Another edition 
1772 under title De la Monstruosite pontificate etc. 



32 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Contains translations of various pamphlets including 
Davisson, A true picture of Popery; Brown, Popery a Craft, 
London 1735; Gordon, Apology for the danger of the 
church, 1 7 19; Gordon, The Creed of an Independent Whig, 
1720. 

3. Examen des Propheties qui servent de fondement a la 
religion Chretienne, Londres (Amsterdam), 1768. Trans- 
lation of Anthony Collins, A Discourse on the Grounds and 
Reasons of the Christian Religion, London, 1724. Con- 
tains also The Scheme of literal Prophecy considered, 172J, 
also by Collins in answer to the works of Clarke, Sherlock, 
Chandler, Sykes, and especially to Whiston's Essay towards 
restoring the text of the Old Testament, one of the thirty- 
five works directed against Collins' original "Discourse." 
Copies of this work have become very rare. 

4. David, ou Vhistoire de Vhomme selon le coeur de Dieu. 
Londres (Amsterdam), 1768. This work appeared in Eng- 
land in 1 76 1 and is attributed to Peter Annet, also to John 
Noorthook. Some English eulogists of George II, Messrs. 
Chandler, Palmer and others, had likened their late King to 
David, "the man after God's own heart." The deists, 
struck by the absurdity of the comparison, proceeded to 
relate all the scandalous facts they could find recorded of 
David, and by clever distortions painted him as the most 
execrable of Kings, in a work entitled David or the Mart 
after God's Own Heart, which formed the basis of Hol- 
bach's translation. 

5. Les pretres demasques ou des iniquites du clerge Chre- 
tien. Londres, 1768. Translation of four discourses pub- 
lished under the title The Ax laid to the root of Christian 
Priestcraft by a layman, London, T. Cooper, 1742. A rare 
volume. 

6. Lettres philosophiques . . . Londres (Amsterdam, 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 33 

1768). Translation of J. Toland's Letters to Serena, Lon- 
don, 1704. The book which had become very rare in Hol- 
bach's time had caused a great scandal at the time of its 
publication and was much sought after by collectors. It 
contains five letters, the first three of which are by Toland, 
the other two and the preface by Holbach and Naigeon. 
The matters treated are, the origin of prejudices, the dogma 
of the immortality of the soul, idolatry, superstition, the 
system of Spinosa and the origin of movement in matter. 

Diderot said of these works, in writing to Mile. Volland 
Nov. 22, 1768 (Oeuvres, Vol. XVIII, p. 308) : "II pleut 
des bombes dans la maison du Seigneur, Je tremble tou jours 
que quelqu'un de ces temeraires artilleurs-la ne s'en trouve 
mal. Ce sont les Lettres philosophiques traduites, ou sup- 
posees traduites, de l'anglais de Toland ; c'est VExamen des 
propheties; c'est la Vie de David ou de Vhomme selon 16, 
coeur de Dieu, ce sont melle diables dechaines. — Ah! 
Madame de Blacy, je crains bien que le Fils de l'Homme ne 
soit a la porte; que la venue d'Elie ne soit proche, et que 
nous ne touchions au regne de l'Anti-christ. Tous les jours, 
quand je me leve, je regarde par ma fenetre, si la grande 
prostituee de Babylone ne se promene point deja dans les 
rues avec sa grande coupe a la main et s'il ne se fait aucun 
des signes predits dans le firmament." 

7. De la Cruaute religieuse, Londres (Amsterdam). Con- 
siderations upon war, upon cruelty in general and religious 
cruelty in particular, London, printed for Thomas Hope, 
1761. 

8. Dissertation critique sur les tourmens de Yenfer printed 
in an original work, L'Enfer detruit, Londres (Amsterdam), 
1769. A translation of White foot's The Torments of Hell, 
the foundation and pillars thereof discovered, searched, 
shaken and remoifd. London, 1658. 



34 BARON D'HOLBACH 

9. In the Recueil philosophique edited by Naigeon, Lon- 
dres (Amsterdam), 1770. 

I. Dissertation sur l'immortalite de l'ame. Translated 

from Hume. 
II. Dissertation sur le suicide (Hume). 
III. Extrait d'un livre Anglais qui a pour titre le Chris- 
tianisme aussi ancien que le monde. (Tindal, 
Christianity as old as Creation.) 

10. Esprit de Judaisme, ou Examen raisonne de la Loi de 
Moyse. Londres (Amsterdam), 1770 (1769), translated 
from Anthony Collins. With the exception of some of 
Holbach's own works this is one of the fiercest denunciations 
of Judaism and Christianity to be found in print. In fact, 
it is very much in the style of Holbach's anti-religious works 
and shows beyond a doubt that Holbach derived his in- 
spiration from Collins and the more radical of the English 
school. The volume has become exceedingly rare. 

After outlining the history of Judaism the book ends thus : 

Ose, done enfin, 6 Europe! secouer le joug insupportable des 
prejuges qui t'affligent. Laisse a des Hebreux stupides, a des 
frenetiques imbeciles, a des Asiatiques laches et degrades, ces 
superstitions aussi avilissantes qu'insensees : elles ne sont point 
faites pour les habitans de ton climat. Occupe-toi du soin de 
perfectionner tes gouvernemens, de corriger tes lois, de reformer 
tes abus, de regler tes moeurs, et ferme pour tou jours les yeux 
a ces vraies chimeres, qui depuis tant de siecles n'ont servi qu'a 
retarder tes progres vers la science veritable et a t'ecarter de 
la route du bonheur. 

11. Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de Saint 
Paul, Londres (Amsterdam), 1770. A free translation of 
Peter Annet's History and character of St. Paul examined, 
written in answer to Lyttelton. New edition 1790 and 
translated back into English " from the French of Boulan- 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 35 

ger," London, R. Carlile, 1823. A rather unsympathetic 
account, but with flashes of real insight into "le systeme 
religieux des Chretiens dont S. Paul fut evidemment le veri- 
table architecte." (Epitre dedicatoire.) 

Annet said of Paul's type of man " l'enthousiaste s'enivre, 
pour l'ainsi dire, de son propre vin, il se persuade que la 
cause de ses passions est la cause de Dieu (p. 72), mais 
quelque violent qu'ait pu etre l'enthousiasme de S. Paul, il 
sentait tres bien que la doctrine qu'il prechait devait paraitre 
bizarre et insensee a des etres raisonnables " (p. I4 1 )- 

12. De la nature humaine, ou Exposition des facultes, 
des actions et des passions de Vame, Londres (Amsterdam), 
1772. (Thomas Hobbes) Reprinted in a French Edition of 
Hobbes' works by Holbach and Sorbiere, 1787. Appeared 
first in English in 1640, omitted in a Latin Edition of 
Hobbes printed in Amsterdam. In spite of its brevity, Hol- 
bach considered this one of Hobbes' most important and 
luminous works. 

13. Disc ours sur les Miracles de Jesus Christ (Amster- 
dam, 1780?) Translated from Woolston, whom Holbach 
admired very much for his uncompromising attitude to- 
ward truth. He suffered fines and imprisonments, but 
would not give up the privilege of writing as he pleased. 
The present discourse was the cause of a quarrel with his 
friend Whiston. He died Jan. 27, 1733, "avec beucoup de 
f ermete . . . il se ferma les yeux et la bouche de ses propres 
mains et rendit l'esprit." This work exists in a manu- 
script book of 187 pages, written very fine, in the Biblio- 
theque Nationale (Mss. frangais 15224) and was current in 
France long before 1780. In fact it is mentioned by Grimm 
before 1770, but the dictionaries (Barber, Querard) gener- 
ally date it from 1780. 

Before turning to Holbach's original works mention 



36 BARON D'HOLBACH 

should be made of a very interesting and extraordinary book 
that he brought to light, retouched, and later used as a kind 
of shield against the attacks of the parliaments upon his own 
works. 

In 1766 he published a work entitled U Antiquite devoilee 
par ses usages, ou Examen critique des principales Opinions, 
Ceremonies et Institutions religieuses et politiques des dif- 
fer ens Peuples de la Terre. Par feu M. Boulanger, Am- 
sterdam, 1766. This is a work based on an original manu- 
script by Boulanger, who died in 1759, preceded by an ex- 
cellent letter on him by Diderot, published also in the Gazette 
Litteraire. 

The use made by Holbach of Boulanger's name makes it 
necessary to consider for a moment this almost forgotten 
writer. Nicholas Antoine Boulanger was born in 1722. 
As a child he showed so little aptitude for study that later 
his teachers could scarcely believe that he had turned out to 
be a really learned man. As Diderot observes, " ces ex- 
amples d'enfans, rendus ineptes entre les mains des Pedans 
qui les abrutissent en depit de la nature la plus heureuse, ne 
sont pas rares, cependant ils surprennent toujours" (p. 1). 
Boulanger studied mathematics and architecture, became an 
engineer and was employed by the government as inspector 
of bridges and highways. He passed a busy life in exacting 
out-door work but at the same time his active intellect played 
over a large range of human interests. He became espe- 
cially concerned with historical origins and set himself to 
learn Latin and Greek that he might get at the sources. Not 
satisfied that he had come to the root of the matter he 
learned Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew and Chaldean. Diderot says 
"II lisait et etudiait partout, je l'ai moi-meme rencontre sur 
les grandes routes avec un auteur rabinnique a la main." He 
made a mappemonde in which the globe is divided in two 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 37 

hemispheres, one occupied by the continents, the other by the 
oceans, and by a singular coincidence he found that the 
meridian of the continental hemisphere passed through 
Paris. Some such rearrangement of hemispheres is one of 
the commonplaces of moden geography. He furnished such 
articles as, Deluge, Corvee, Societe for the Encyclopedia 
and wrote several large and extremely learned books, among 
them Recherches sur I'origine du Despotisme oriental and 
Antiquite devoilee. He died from overwork at the age of 
thirty-seven. 

Boulanger's ideas on philosophy, mythology, anthropol- 
ogy and history are of extraordinary interest today. Did- 
erot relates his saying — " Que si la philosophic avait trouve 
tant d'obstacles parmi nous c'etait qu'on avait commence par 
ou il aurait fallu finir, par des maximes abstraites, des rais- 
onnemens generaux, des reflexions subtiles qui ont revoke 
par leur etrangete et leur hardiesse et qu'on aurait admises 
sans peine si elles avaient ete precedees de l'histoire des faits." 
He carried over this inductive method into realm of history, 
which he thought had been approached from the wrong side, 
i. e., the metaphysical, " par consulter les lumieres de la raison " 
(p. 8). He continues, " j'ai pense qu'il devait y avoir quel- 
que circonstances particulieres. Un fait et non une specula- 
tion metaphysique m'a tou jours semble devoir etre et tribut 
naturel et necessaire de l'histoire." Curiously enough the 
central fact in history appeared to Boulanger to be the 
deluge, and on the basis of it he attempted to interpret the 
Kulturgeschichte of humanity. It is a bit unfortunate that 
he took the deluge quite as literally as he did ; his idea, how- 
ever, is obviously the influence of environmental pressure 
on the changing beliefs and practices of mankind. Under 
the spell of this new point of view, he writes, "Ce qu'on 
appelle l'histoire n'en est que la partie la plus ingrate, la plus 



38 BARON D'HOLBACH 

uni forme, la plus inutile, quoi qu'elle soit la plus connue. 
La veritable histoire est couvert par le voile des temps" 
(p. 7). Boulanger however was not to be daunted and on 
the firm foundation of the fact of some ancient and univer- 
sal catastrophe, as recorded on the surface of the earth and 
in human mythology, he proceeds to inquire into the moral 
effects of the changes in the physical environment back to 
which if possible the history of antiquity must be traced. 
Man's defeat in his struggle with the elements made him 
religious, hinc prima mali lobes. " Son premier pas fut un 
faux pas, so premiere maxime fut une erreur" (p. 4 sq). 
But it was not his fault nor has time repaired the evil moral 
effects of that early catastrophe. " Les grandes revolutions 
physiques de notre globe sont les veritables epoques de 
l'histoire des nations" (p. 9). Hence have arisen the vari- 
ous psychological states through which mankind has passed. 
Contemporary savages are still in the primitive state, — Bou- 
langer properly emphasizes the relation of anthropology to 
history — " On appercoit qu'il y a une nouvelle maniere de 
voir et d'ecrire l'histoire des homines" (p. 12) and with a 
vast store of anthropological and folklorist learning he writes 
it so that his assailant, Fabry d'Autrey, in his Antiquite jus- 
tifiee (Paris, 1766) is obliged to say with truth, "Ce n'est 
point ici un tissue de mensonges grossiers, de sophismes 
rebattus et bouffons, appliques d'un air meprisant aux objets 
les plus interessans pour l'humanite. C'est une entreprise 
serieuse et reflechie" (p. 11). 

In 1767 Holbach published his first original work, a few 
copies of which had been printed in Nancy in 1761. This 
work was Le Christianisme devoile on Ex amen des prin- 
cipes et des effets de la religion Chretienne. Par feu M. 
Boulanger. Londres (Amsterdam), 1767. There were 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 39 

several other editions the same year, one printed at John 
Wilkes' private press in Westminster. It was reprinted in 
later collections of Boulanger's works, and went through 
several English and Spanish editions. The form of the 
title and the attribution of the work to Boulanger were de- 
signed to set persecution on the wrong track. There has 
been some discussion as to its authorship. Voltaire and 
Laharpe attributed it to Damilaville, at whose book shop it 
was said to have been sold, but M. Barbier has published 
detailed information given him by Naigeon to the effect 
that Holbach entrusted his manuscript to M. De Saint- 
Lambert, who had it printed by Leclerc at Nancy in 1761. 
Most of the copies that got to Paris at that time were 
bought by several officers of the King's regiment then in 
garrison at Nancy, among them M. de Villevielle, 
a friend of Voltaire and of Condorcet. Damilaville did not 
sell a single copy and even had a great deal of trouble to 
get one for Holbach who waited for it a long time. This 
circumstantial evidence is of greater value than the state- 
ment of Voltaire who was in the habit of attributing 
anonymous works to whomever he pleased. 2 

The edition of 1767 was printed in Amsterdam as were 
most of Holbach's works. We have the details of their 
publication from Naigeon cadet, a copyist, whose brother, 
J. A. Naigeon, was Holbach's literary factotum. In a 
manuscript note in his copy of the Systeme de la Nature he 
tells how he copied nearly all Holbach's works, either at 
Paris or at Sedan, where he was stationed, and where his 
friend Blon, the postmaster, aided him, passing the manu- 
scripts on to a Madame Loncin in Liege, who in turn was a 
correspondent of Marc-Michel Rey, the printer in Amster- 
dam. Sometimes they were sent directly by the diligence 

2 Barbier, Diet., Vol. I, p. 175 sq. 



4 BARON D'HOLBACH 

or through travellers. This account agrees perfectly with 
information given M. Barbier orally by Naigeon aine. 
After being printed in Holland the books were smuggled 
into France sous le manteaux, as the expression is, and sold 
at absurd rates by colporters. 3 

Diderot writing to Falconet early in 1768 4 says: "II 
pleut des livres incredules. C'est un feu roulant qui crible 
le sanctuaire de toutes parts. . . . L'intolerance du gouvern- 
ment s'accroit de jour en jour. On dirait que c'est un 
projet forme d'eteindre ici les lettres, de ruiner le com- 
merce de librairie et de nous reduire a la besace et a la 
stupidite. . . . Le Christianisme devoile s'est vendu jusqu'a 
quatre louis." 

When caught the colporters were severely punished. 
Diderot gives the following instance in a letter to Mile. Vol- 
land Oct. 8, 1768 (Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot, p. 161) : "Un 
apprenti avait regu, en payment ou autrement, d'un col- 
porteur appele Lecuyer, deux exemplaires du Christianisme 
devoile, et il avait vendu un de ces exemplaires a son patron. 
Celui-ci le defere au lieutenant de police. Le colporteur, sa 
femme et l'apprenti sont arretes tous les trois; ils viennent 
d'etre pilories, fouettes et marques, et l'apprenti condemne a 
neuf ans de galeres, le colporteur a cinq ans, et la femme 
a l'hopital pour toute sa vie." 

There are two very interesting pieces of contemporary 
criticism of Le Christianisme devoile, one by Voltaire, the 
other by Grimm. Voltaire writes in a letter to Madame de 
Saint Julien December 15, 1766 (Oeuvres, XLIV, p. 534, 
(ed. Gamier) : " Vous m'apprenez que, dans votre societe, 
on m'attribue Le Christianisme devoile par feu M. Bou- 
langer, mais je vous assure que les gens au fait ne m'at- 

3 Barbier, Vol. I, p. xxxiii, note. 

4 Oeuvres, Vol. XVIII, p. 265. 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 4 1 

tribuent point du tout cet ouvrage. J'avoue avec vous qu'il 
y a de la clarte, de la chaleur, et quelque f ois de l'eloquence ; 
mais il est plein de repetitions, de negligences, de fautes 
contre la langue et je serais tres-fache de l'avoir fait, non 
seulement comme academicien, mais comme philosophe, et 
encore plus comme citoyen. 

"II est entierement oppose a mes principes. Ce livre 
conduit a l'atheisme que je deteste. J'ai toujours regarde 
l'atheisme comme le plus grand egarement de la raison, par- 
ce qu 'il est aussi ridicule de dire que l'arrangement du monde 
ne prouve pas un artisan supreme qu'il serait impertinent 
de dire qu'une horloge ne prouve pas un horloger. 

"Je ne reprouve pas moins ce livre comme citoyen; 
l'auteur parait trop ennemi des puissances. Des homines 
qui penseraient comme lui ne f ormeraient qu'une anarchie : 
et je vois trop, par l'example de Geneve, combien l'anarchie 
est a craindre. Ma coutume est d'ecrire sur la marge de 
mes livres ce que je pense d'eux, vous verrez, quand vous 
daignerez venir a Ferney, les marges de Christianisme 
devoile charges de remarques qui montrent que l'auteur s'est 
trompe sur les faits les plus essentiels." These notes may 
be read in Voltaire's works (Vol. XXXI, p. 129, ed. 
Gamier) and the original copy of Le Christianisme devoile 
in which he wrote them is in the British Museum (c 28, k 3) 
where it is jealously guarded as one of the most precious 
autographs of the Patriarch of Ferney. 

Grimm's notice is from the Correspondence Litteraire of 
August 15, 1763 (Vol. V, p. 367). "II existe un livre 
intitule le Christianisme devoile ou Examen des principes et 
des effets de la religion Chretienne, par feu M. Boulanger, 
volume in 8°. On voit d'abord qu'on lui a donne ce titre 
pour en faire le pendant de VAntiquite devoilee; mais il ne 
faut pas beucoup se connaitre en maniere pour sentir que 



42 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



ces deux ouvrages ne sont pas sortis de la meme plume. On 
peut assurer avec la meme certitude que celui dont nous 
parlons ne vient point de la fabrique de Ferney, parceque 
j'aimerais mieux croire que le patriache eut pris la lune 
avec ses dents; cela serait moins impossible que de guetter 
sa maniere et son allure si completement qu'il n'en restat 
aucune trace quelconque. Par la meme raison, je ne crois 
ce livre d'aucun de nos philosophes connus, parceque je 
n'y trouve la maniere d'aucun de ceux qui ont ecrit. D'ou 
vient-il done? Ma foi, je serais fache de le savoir, et je 
crois que l'auteur aura sagement fait de ne mettre personne 
dans son secret. C'est le livre le plus hardi et le plus terrible 
qui ait jamais paru dans aucun lieu du monde. La preface 
consiste dans une lettre ou l'auteur examine si la religion 
est reelement necessaire ou seulement utile au maintien ou 
a la police des empires, et s'il convient de la respecter sous 
ce point de vue. Comme il etablit la negative, il entreprend 
en consequence de prouver, par son ouvrage, l'absurdite et 
l'incoherence du dogme Chretien et de la mythologie qui en 
resulte, et rinfluence de cette absurdite sur les tetes et sur 
les ames. Dans la seconde partie, il examine la morale 
chretienne, et il pretend prouver que dans ses principes 
generaux elle n'a aucun avantage sur toutes les morales du 
monde, parce que la justice et la bonte sont recommandees 
dans tous les catechismes de l'univers, et que chez aucun 
peuple, quelque barbare qu'il fut, on n'a jamais enseigne 
qu'il fallut etre injuste et mediant. Quant a ce que la 
morale chretienne a de particulier, l'auteur pretend demon- 
trer qu'elle ne peut convenir qu'a des enthousiastes peu 
propres aux devoirs de la societe, pour les quels les hommes 
sont dans ce monde. II entreprend de prouver, dans la 
troisieme partie, que la religion chretienne a eu les effets 
politiques les plus sinistres et les plus funestes, et que le 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 43 

genre humain lui doit tous les malheurs dont il a ete accable 
depuis quinze a dixhuit siecles, sans qu'on en puisse encore 
prevoir la fin. 

Ce livre est ecrit avec plus de vehemence que de 
veritable eloquence; il entraine. Son style est chatie et 
correct, quoique un peu dur et sec; son ton est grave et 
soutenu. On n'y apprend rien de nouveau, et cependant il 
attache et interesse. Malgre son incroyable temerite, on ne 
peut refuser a l'auteur la qualite d'homme de bien fortement 
epris du bonheur de sa race et de la prosperite des societes ; 
mais je pense que ses bonnes intentions seraient une sauve- 
garde bien faible contre les mandements et les requisitions." 
This is a clear and fair account of a book that is without 
doubt the severest criticism of the theory and practice of 
historical Christianity ever put in print. 

The church very naturally did not let such a book pass 
unanswered. Abbe Bergier, a heavy person, triumphantly 
refuted Holbach in eight hundred pages in his Apologie de 
la Religion Chretienne contre VAuteur du Christianisme 
devoile, Paris, 1769, which finishes with the fatal prophecy, 
" Nous avons de surs garans de nos esperances : tant que le 
sang auguste de S. Louis sera sur le trone, il n'y a point de 
revolutions a craindre ni dans la Religion ni dans la politique. 
La religion Chretienne fondee sur la parole de Dieu. . . . 
triomphera des nouveaux Philosophes. Dieu qui veille sur 
son ouvrage n'a pas besoin de nos foibles mains pour le 
soutenir" (Psaume 32, vs. 10, n). 

2. There already existed in 1767 another work by Hol- 
bach entitled Theologie portative ou Dictionnaire Abrege 
de la Religion Chretienne. Par M r VAbbe Bernier. Lon- 
dres (Amsterdam), 1768 (1767). This book went through 
many editions and was augmented by subsequent authors 



44 BARON D'HOLBACH 

and editors. Voltaire was already writing to d'Alembert 
about it August 14, 1767. 5 

In a letter to Damilaville, October 16, he writes (Vol. 
XIV, p. 406) : 

Depuis trois mois il y a une douzaine d'ouvrages d'une liberte 
extreme, imprimes en Hollande. La Theologie portative n'est 
nullement theologique: ce n'est qu'une plaisanterie continuelle 
par ordre alphabetique ; mais il f aut avouer qu'il y a des traits 
si comiques que plusieurs theologiens memes ne pourront s'em- 
pecher d'en rire. Les jeunes gens et les femmes lisent cette 
folie avec avidite. Les editions de tous les livres dans ce gout 
se multiplient. 

And on February 8, 1768, he wrote: 

On fait tous les jours des livres contre la religion, dont je 
voudrais bien imiter le style pour la defendre. Y a-t-il de plus 
sale, que la plupart des traits qui se trouvent dans la Theologie 
portative? Y a-t-il rien de plus vigoreux, de plus profonde- 
ment raisonne, d'ecrit avec une eloquence plus audacieuse et 
plus terrible, que leMilitaire philosophe, ouvrage qui court toute 
l'Europe? [by Naigeon and Holbach] Lisez la Theologie por- 
tative, et vous ne pourrez vous empecher de rire, en condam- 
mant la coupable hardiesse de l'auteur. Lisez Y Imposture 
sacerdotal — vous y verrez le style de Demosthene. Ces livres 
malheuresement inondent l'Europe ; mais quelle est la cause de 
cette inondation? II n'y en a point d'autre que les querelles 
theologiques qui ont revoke les laiques. // sest fait une revo- 
lution dans V esprit humain que rien ne pent plus arreter: le3 
persecutions ne pourraient qu'irriter le mal. Q 

It is to be noted however that Voltaire's sentiments 
varied according to the point of view of the person to 
whom he was writing. In a letter to d'Alembert, May 24, 

5 Oeuvres, Vol. XIV, p. 352. 

6 The italics are mine. 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 45 

1769 (Vol. LXV, p. 453), he calls the Theologie portative, 
un ouvrage a mon gre, tres plaisant, auquel je n'ai assure- 
ment nulle part, ouvrage que je serais tres fache d'avoir 
fait, et que je voudrais bien avoir ete capable de faire. But 
in a letter to the Bishop of Annecy June, 1769, he writes 
(VoLXXVIII, p. 73) : " Vous lui [M. de Saint Florentin] 
imputez, a ce que je vois par vos lettres, des livres miserables, 
et jusqu'a la Theologie portative, ouvrage fait apparemment 
dans quelque cabaret ; vous n'etes pas oblige d'avoir du gout, 
mais vous etes oblige d'etre juste" (Vol. XXVIII, p. 73). 
Diderot even said of the book : " C'est un assez bon nombre 
de bonnes plaisanteries noyees dans un beaucoup plus grand 
nombre de mauvaises " and this criticism is just. A few 
examples of the better jokes will suffice : 

Adam: C'est le premier homme, Dieu en fait un grand nigaud, 
qui pour complaire a sa f emme eut la betise de mordre dans une 
pomme que ses descendans n'ont point encore pu digerer. 

Idees Innees: Notions inspirees des Pretres de si bonne 
heure, si souvent repetees, que devenu grand Ton croit les avoir 
eu toujours ou les avoir regus des le ventre de sa mere. 

Jonas: La baleine fut a la fin obligee de le vomir tant un 
Prophete est un morceau difficile a digerer. 

Magie: II y en a de deux sortes, la blanche et la noire. La 
premiere est tres sainte et se pratique journellement dans 
l'eglise. 

Protestants: Chretiens amphibies. 

Vierge: C'est la mere du fils de Dieu et belle-mere de l'eglise. 

Visions: Lanternes magiques que de tout temps le Pere 
Eternel s'est amuse a montrer aux Saintes et aux Prophetes. 

3. Holbach furnished the last chapter of Naigeon's book 
Le Militaire philosophe, ou Difficulties sur la religion, Lon- 
dres (Amsterdam), 1768. Voltaire ascribed the work to 



4 6 BARON D'HOLBACH 

St. Hyacinthe. Grimm recognized that the last chapter 
was by another hand and considered it the weakest part of 
the book. It attempts to demonstrate that all supernatural 
religions have been harmful to society and that the only 
useful religion is natural religion or morals. The book was 
refuted by Guidi, in a " Lettre a M. le Chevalier de . . . 
[Barthe] entraine dans I'irreligion par un libelle intitule 
Le Militaire philosophe (1770, i2mo). 

4. Holbach's next book was La Contagion sacree oil 
I'Histoire naturelle de la Superstition, Londres (Amster- 
dam), 1768. In his preface Holbach attributed the alleged 
English original of this work to John Trenchard but 
that was only a ruse to avoid persecution. The book is by 
Holbach It has gone through many editions and been 
translated into English and Spanish. The first edition had 
an introduction by Naigeon. According to him manu- 
scripts of this book became quite rare at one time and 
were supposed to have been lost. Later they became more 
common and this edition was corrected by collation with 
six others. The letters were written in 1764, according to 
Lequinio (Feuilles posthumes) , who had his information 
from Naigeon, to Marguerite, Marchioness de Vermandois 
in answer to a very touching and pitiful letter from that 
lady who was in great trouble over religion. Her young 
husband was a great friend of the Holbachs, but having 
had a strict Catholic bringing up she was shocked at their 
infidelity and warned by her confessor to keep away from 
them. " Yet in their home she saw all the domestic virtues 
exemplified and beheld that sweet and unchangeable affec- 
tion for which the d' Holbachs were eminently distinguished 
among their acquaintances and which was remarkable for 
its striking contrast with the courtly and Christian habits of 
the day. Her natural good sense and love for her friends 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 47 

struggled with her monastic education and reverence for 
the priests. The conflict rendered her miserable and she 
returned to her country seat to brood over it. In this state 
of mind she at length wrote to the Baron and laid open her 
situation requesting him to comfort, console, and enlighten 
her." 7 His letters accomplished the desired effect and he 
later published them in the hope that they would do as much 
for others. They were carefully revised before they were 
sent to the press. All the purely personal passages were 
omitted and others added to hide the identity of the persons 
concerned. Letters of the sort to religious ladies were 
common at this time. Freret's were preventive, Holbach's 
curative, but appear to be rather strong dose for a devote, 
Other examples are Voltaire's Epitre a Uranie and Diderot's 
Entretien d'un Philosophe avec la Marechale de. . . . 

6. In 1769 Holbach published two short treatises on the 
doctrine of eternal punishment which claimed to be transla- 
tions from English but the originals are not to be found. 
The titles are De I' intolerance convaincue de crime et de folie 
as it is sometimes given, and 

7. L'Enfer detruit ou Ex amen raisonne du Dogme de 
VEternite des Peines. Londres, Amsterdam, 1769. This 
letter was translated into English under the title Hell De- 
stroyed! "Now first translated from the French of 
d'Alembert without any mutilations," London 1823, which 
led Mr. J. Hibbert to say, " I know not why English pub- 
lishers attribute this awfully sounding work to the cautious, 
not to say timid d'Alembert. It was followed by White- 
foot's 'Torments of Hell/ now first translated from the 
French." 8 

Of Holbach's remaining works on religion two, Histoire 

7 Micldleton's translation, preface. 

8 Cf. p. 94. 



4 8 BARON D'HOLBACH 

critique de Jesus Christ and Tableau des Saints, date from 
1770 when he began to publish his more philosophical 
works. 

8. The Histoire critique de Jesus Christ ou Analyse rai- 
sonnee des Evangiles was published without name of place 
or date. It was preceded by Voltaire's Epitre a Uranie. 
It is an extremely careful but unsympathetic analysis of the 
Gospel accounts, emphasizing all the inconsistencies and in- 
terpreting them with a literalness that they can ill sustain. 
From this rationalistic view-point Holbach found the 
Gospels a tissue of absurdities and contradictions. His 
method, however, would not be followed by the critique of 
today. 

9. The Tableau des Saints is a still more severe criticism 
of the heroes of Christendom. Holbach's proposition is 
"La raison ne connait qu'une mesure pour juger et les 
hommes et les choses, c'est l'utilite reele et permanente, qui 
en resulte pour notre espece," (p. 111.) Judged by this 
standard, the saints with their eyes fixed on another world 
have fallen far short. " lis se flatterent de meriter le ciel 
en se rendant parfaitement inutile a la terre" (p. xviii). 
Holbach much prefers the heroes of classical antiquity. 
The book is violent but learned throughout, and deals not 
only with the Jewish patriarchs from Moses on but with the 
church fathers and Christian Princes down to the contem- 
porary defenders of the faith. After a rather one-sided 
account of the most dreary characters and events in Chris- 
tian history, Holbach concludes : " Tel fut, tel est, et tel sera 
toujours l'esprit du Christianisme : il est aise de sentir qu'il 
est incompatible avec les principes les plus evidens de la 
morale et de la saine politique " (p. 208). 

10. In Recueil philosophique, Londres (Amsterdam), 
1770, edited by Naigeon. Reflexions sur les craintes de la 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 49 

Mort. Probleme important — La Religion est-elle necessaire 
a la morale et utile a la Politique. Par M. Mirabaud. 

11. Essai sur les prejuges, ou De V influence des opinions 
sur les moeurs et sur le bonheur des Hommes. Londres 
(Amsterdam), 1770, under name of Dumarsais. The book 
pretended to be an elaboration of Dumarsais' essay on the 
Philosophe published in the Nouvelles liberies de penser, 

1750. 

The special interest connected with it was the refutation 
Frederick the Great published under the title Examen de 
I' Essai sur les prejuges, Londres, Nourse, 1770 (16 mo). 
The King of Prussia writing from the point of view of a 
practical, enlightened despot, took special exception to 
Holbach's remarks on government. " II l'outrage avec au- 
tant de grossierete que d'indecence, il force le gouvernement 
de prendre fait et cause avec l'eglise pour s'opposer a l'ennemi 
commun. Mais, quand avec un acharnement violent et les 
traits de la plus acre satire, il calomnie son Roi et le gouv- 
ernement de son pays, on le prend pour un frenetique 
echappe de ses chaines, et livre aux transports les plus 
violens de sa rage. Quoi, Monsieur le philosophe, pro- 
tecteur des moeurs et de la vertu, ignorez vous qu'un bon 
citoyen doit respecter la forme de gouvernement sous la- 
quelle il vit, ignorez vous qu'il ne convient point a un par- 
ticulier d'insulter les Puissances ... (p. 28). 

" Non content d'insulter a toutes les tetes couronnes de 
l'Europe, notre philosophe s'amuse, en passant, a repondre 
du ridicule sur les ouvrages de Hugo Grotius. J'oserais 
croire qu'il n'en sera pas cru sur sa parole, et que le Droit 
de la guerre ei de la paix ira plus loin a la posterite que 
V Essai sur les prejuges" (p. 39). 

Holbach in his anti-militaristic enthusiasm had used the 
words " bourreaux mercenaires " " epithete elegante," con- 



5 BARON D'HOLBACH 

tinues Frederick, " dont il honore les guerriers. Mais souf- 
frions nous qu'un cerveau brule insulte au plus noble emploi 
de la Societe ? " p. 49. He goes on to defend war in good old 
fashioned terms. " Vous declamez contre la guerre, elle est 
funeste en elle-meme; mais c'est un mal comme ces autres 
fleaux du ciel qu'il faut supposer necessaire c dans l'arrange- 
ment de cet univers parce qu'ils arrivent periodiquement et 
qu'aucun siecle n'a pu jusqu'a present d'en avoir ete exempt. 
J'ai prouve que de tout temps l'erreur a domine dans ce 
monde; et comme une chose aussi constante peut etre en- 
visaged comme une loi general de la nature, j'en conclus que 
ce qui a ete toujours sera tou jours le meme " (p. 19). 

Frederick sent his little refutation to Voltaire for his 
compliments which were forthcoming. A few days after 
Voltaire wrote to d' Alembert : 

Le roi de Prusse vous a envoye, sans doute, son petit ecrit 
contre un livre imprime cette annee, intitule Essai sur les pre- 
juges, ce roi a aussi les siens, qu'il faut lui pardonner ; on n'est 
pas roi pour rien. Mais je voudrais savoir quel est l'auteur de cet 
Essai contre lequel sa majeste prussienne s'amuse a ecrire un 
peu durement. Serait-il de Diderot? serait-il de Damilaville? 
serait-il d'Helvetius? peut-etre ne le connaissez-vous point, je 
le crois imprime en Hollande (Vol. LXVI p. 304) 

d' Alembert answered : 

Oui, le roi re Prusse m'a envoye son ecrit contre I' Essai sur 
les prejuges. Je ne suis point etonne que ce prince n'ait pas 
goute l'ouvrage; je l'ai lu depuis cette refutation et il m'a paru 
bien long, bien monotone et trop amer. II me semble que ce 
qu'il y de bon dans ce livre aurait pu et du etre noye dans moins 
de pages et je vois que vous en avez porte a peu pres le meme 
jugement (Vol. LXVI, p. 324). 

In spite of these unfavorable judgments the Essai was 
reprinted as late as 1886 by the Bibliotheque Nationale in 
its Collection des meilleurs auteurs anciens et modernes, 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 5 1 

still attributed to Dumarsais with the account of his life by 
" le citoyen Daube " which graced the edition of the year I. 
(1792). 

12. Early in 1770 appeared Holbach's most famous book, 
the Systeme de la Nature, the only book that is connected 
with his name in the minds of most historians and philoso- 
phers. It seems wiser, however, to deal with this work in 
a chapter apart and continue the account of his later pub- 
lications. 

13. The next of which was " Le bon-sens, ou idees natur- 
elles oppose es aux idees surnaturelles. Par VAuteur du 
Systeme de la Nature, Londres (Amsterdam), 1772. This 
work has gone through twenty-five editions or more and has 
been translated into English, German, Italian and Spanish. 
As early as 1791 it began to be published under the name 
of the cure Jean Meslier d'Etrepigny, made so famous by 
Voltaire's publication of what was supposed to be his last 
will and testament in which on his death bed he abjured and 
cursed Christianity. Some editions contain in the preface 
Letters by Voltaire and his sketch of Jean Meslier. The 
last reprint was by De Laurence, Scott & Co., Chicago, 
19 10. The book is nothing more or less than the Sys- 
teme de la Nature, in a greatly reduced and more readable 
form. 

Voltaire, to whom it was attributed by some, said to 
d'Alembert, " II y a plus que du bon sens dans ce livre, il est 
terrible. S'il sort de la boutique du Systeme de la Nature, 
l'auteur s'est bien perfectionne." d'Alembert answered: 
" Je pense comme vous sur le Bon-sens qui me parait un bien 
plus terrible livre que le Systeme de la Nature/' These re- 
marks were inscribed by Thomas Jefferson on title page of 
his copy of Bon-sens. The book has gone through several 
editions in the United States and was sold at a popular 



52 BARON D'HOLBACH 

price. The German translation was published in Baltimore 
on the basis of a copy found in a second-hand book store 
in New Orleans. The most serious work written against it 
is a long and carefully written treatise against materialism 
by an Italian monk, Gardini, entitled L'anima umana e sue 
proprieta dedotte da soli principj de ragione, dal P. lettore 
D. Antonmaria Gardini, monaco camaldalese, contro i mate- 
rialisti e specialmente contro I' opera intitulata, le Bon-Sens, 
ou Idees Naturelles opposees aux idees Surnaturelles. In 
Padova MDCCLXXXI Nella stamperia del Seminario. Ap- 
presso Giovanni Manfre, Con Licenza de Superiori e Privi- 
legio (8vo, p. xx + 284). 

14. In 1773 Holbach published his Recherches sur les 
Miracles, a much more sober work than his previous writ- 
ings on religion. In this book he raises the well known dif- 
ficulties with belief in miracles and brings a great deal of 
real learning and logic to bear on the question. The en- 
tire work is in a reasonable and philosophic spirit. His con- 
clusion is that "une vraie religion doit avoir au defaut de 
bonnes raisons, des preuves sensibles, capables de faire im- 
pression sur tout ceux qui la cherchent de bonne foi. Ce 
ne sont pas les miracles." The same vear he published two 
serious but somewhat tiresome works on politics. 

15. La politique naturelle. 

16. Systeme social in which he attempts to reduce gov- 
ernment to the naturalistic principles which were the basis 
of his entire philosophy. The first is also attributed to 
Malesherbes. There is a long and keen criticism of the 
Systeme Social by Mme. d'Epinay in a letter to Abbe Gali- 
ani Jan. 12, 1773 (Gal. Corresp., Vol. II, p. 167). 

But the most interesting reaction upon it was that of the 
Abbe Richard who criticized it from point of view of the 
divine right of kings in his long and tiresome work entitled 



HOLBACH'S WORKS 53 

La Defense de la religion, de la morale, de la vertu, de la 
politique et de la societe, dans la refutation des ouvrages qui 
ont pour titre, Vun Systeme Social etc. V autre La Politique 
Naturelle par le R. P. Ch. L. Richard, Professor de Theol- 
ogie, etc., Paris, Moulard, 1775. 

In a preface of forty-seven pages the fears of the conserv- 
ative old Abbe are well expressed. The aim of these mod- 
ern philosophers who are poisoning public opinion by their 
writings is to "demolir avec l'antique edifice de la religion 
chretienne, celui des moeurs, de la vertu, de la saine politique 
etc. rompre tous les canaux de communication entre la terre 
et le ciel, bannir, exterminer du monde le Dieu qui le tira du 
neant, y introduire l'impiete la plus complete, la licence la 
plus consomnee, l'anarchie la plus entire, la confusion la 
plus horrible." 

17. Holbach's next work, Ethocratie ou Gouvernement 
fonde sur la Morale, Amsterdam, Rey, 1776, is interesting 
mainly for its unfortunate dedication and peroration, in- 
scribed to Louis XVI, who was hailed therein as a long 
expected Messiah. 

18. Holbach's last works dealt exclusively with morals. 
They are La morale universelle ou les devoirs de Vhomme 
fondes sur la nature, Amsterdam, 1771, and 

19. A posthumous work, Elements de la Morale univer- 
selle, ou catechisme de la nature, Paris, 1790. This is a 
beautiful little book. It is simple and clear to the last 
degree. There have been several translations in Spanish 
for the purposes of elementary education in morals in the 
public schools. It was composed in 1765. Holbach's atti- 
tude towards morals is indicated by his Avertissement — 
" La morale est une science dont les principes sont suscepti- 
bles d'une demonstration aussi claire et aussi rigoureuse que 
ceux du calcul et de la geometric 



CHAPTER III 

THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 

Early in 1 770 appeared the famous Systeme de la Nature, 
ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Morale, 
Par M. Mirabaud, Secretaire Perpetuel et Vun des Qua- 
rante de VAcademie Francaise, Londres (Amsterdam), 1770. 
This work has gone through over thirty editions in France, 
Spain, Germany, England and the United States. -No book 
of a philosophic or scientific character has ever caused such 
a sensation at the time of its publication, excepting perhaps 
Darwin's Origin of Species, the thesis of which is more than 
hinted at by Holbach. There were several editions in 1770. 
A very few copies contain a Discours preliminaire de VAu- 
teur of sixteen pages which Naigeon had printed separately 
in London. The Abrege du Code de la Nature, which ends 
the book, was also published separately and is sometimes 
attributed to Diderot, 8vo, 16 pp. 1 

There is also a book entitled Le vrai sens du Systeme de la 
Nature, 1774, attributed to Helvetius, a very clear, concise 
epitome largely in Holbach's own short and telling sentences, 
and much more effective than the original because of its 
brevity. Holbach himself reproduced the Systeme de la 
Nature in a shortened form in Bon-sens, 1772, and Pay- 
rard plagiarized it freely in De la Nature et de ses Lois, 
Paris, 1773. The book has been attributed to Diderot, Hel- 
vetius, Robinet, Damilaville and others. Naigeon is certain 
that it is entirely by Holbach, although it is generally held 
that Diderot had a hand in it. It was published under the 

1 Morley, Diderot, Vol. II, p. 155. 

54 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 55 

name of Mirabaud to obviate persecution. The manuscript 
it was alleged had been found among his papers as a sort 
of "testament" or philosophical legacy to posterity. This 
work may be called the bible of scientific materialism and 
dogmatic atheism. Nothing before or since has ever ap- 
proached it in its open and unequivocal insistence on points 
of view commonly held, if at all, with reluctance and re- 
serve. It is impossible in a study of this length to deal 
fully with the attacks and refutations that were pub- 
lished immediately. We way mention first the condemna- 
tion of the book by the Parlement de Paris, August 18, 
1770, to be burned by the public hangman along with 
Voltaire's Dieu et les Homnes, and Holbach's Discours 
sur les Miracles, La Contagion sacree and le Christianisme 
devoile, which had already been condemned on September 
24, 1 769.2 

The Requisitoire of Seguier, avocat general, on the occa- 
sion of the condemnation of the Systeme de la Nature was 
so weak and ridiculous that the Parlement de Paris refused 
to sanction its publication, and it was printed by the express 
order of the King. As Grimm observed, it seemed designed 
solely to acquaint the ignorant with this dangerous work, 
without opposing any of its propositions. One would look 
in vain for a better example of the conservatism of the legal 
profession. 3 

Le poison des nouveautes profanes ne peut corrompre la 
sainte gravite des moeurs qui caracterise les vrais Magistrats: 
tout peut changer autour d'eux, Us restent immuables avec la 
loi (page 496). 

Nest-ce pas ce fatal abus de la liberte de penser, qui a en- 

2 Later Bon-sens and Theologie portative were doomed to the flames 
by the condemnations of Jan. 10, 1774, and February 16, 1776. 

3 Systeme de la Nature, ed. 1771, Vol. II, p. 496. 



5 6 BARON D'HOLBACH 

fante cette multitude de sectes, d'opinions, de partis, et cet 
esprit d'independence dont d'autres nations ont eprouve les 
sinstres revolutions. Le meme abus produira en France des 
effets peut-etre plus funestes. La liberte indefine trouveroit, 
dans la caractere de la nation, dans son activite, dans son amour 
pour la nouveaute, un moyen de plus pour preparer les plus 
affreuses revolutions (p. 498). 

The most interesting private attacks on the Systeme de la 
Nature came from two somewhat unexpected quarters, from 
Ferney and Sans Souci. Voltaire, as usual, was not wholly 
consistent in his opinions of it, as is revealed in his count- 
less letters on the subject. Grimm attributed his hostility 
to jealousy, and the fear that the Systeme de la Nature might 
"renverse le rituel de Ferney et que le patriarcat ne s'en 
aille au diable avec lui. 4 George Leroy went so far as 
to write a book entitled Reflexions sur la jalousie, pour 
servir de commentaire aux dernier s outrages de M. de Vol- 
taire, 1772. Frederick II naturally felt bound to defend 
the kings who, as Voltaire said, were no better treated than 
God in the Systeme de la Nature? 

Voltaire's correspondence during this period is so inter- 
esting that it seems worth while to quote at length, espe- 
cially from his letters to Fredrick the Great. In May 
1770, shortly after the publication of the Systeme de la 
Nature Voltaire wrote to M. Vernes: 6 "On a tant dit de 
sottises sur la nature que je ne lis plus aucun de ces 
livres la." But by July he had read it and wrote to 
Grimm : 7 " Si l'ouvrage eut ete plus serre il aurait fait un 
effet terrible, mais tel qu'il est il en a fait beaucoup. II 
est bien plus eloquent que Spinosa. . . . J'ai une grande 

4 Grimm, Cor. Lit., Vol. IX, p. 167. 

5 Voltaire, Oeuvres, ed. Beuchot, Vol. LXVI, p. 404. Subsequent 
references to Voltaire are from this edition. 

6 Vol. LXVII, p. 265. 

7 Grimm, Cor. Lit., Vol. IX, p. 90. 



THE SYSTEME BE LA NATURE 57 

curiosite de savoir ce qu'on en pense a Paris." In writing 
to d'Alembert about this time he seemed to have a fairly 
favorable impression of the book. "II m'a paru qu'il y 
avait des longueurs, des repetitions et quelques inconse- 
quences, mais il y a trop de bon pour qu'on n'eclate avec 
fureur contre ce livre. Si on garde le silence, ce sera une 
preuve du prodigieux progres que la tolerance fait tous les 
jours." 8 But there was little likelihood that philosophers 
or theologians would keep silent about this scandalous book. 
Before the end of the month Voltaire was writing to d'Alem- 
bert about his own and the king of Prussia's refutations 
of it, and the same day wrote to Frederick : " II me semble 
que vos remarques doivent etre imprimees ; ce sont des lecons 
pour le genre humain. Vous soutenez d'un bras la cause 
de Dieux et vous ecrasez de l'autre la superstition." 9 Later 
Voltaire confessed to Frederick that he also had undertaken 
to rebuke the author of the Systeme de la Nature. " Ainsi 
Dieu a pour lui les deux hommes les moins superstitieux de 
l'Europe, ce que devait lui plaire beaucoup" (p. 390). 
Frederick, however, hesitated to make his refutation pub- 
lic, and wrote to Voltaire : " Lorsque j'eus acheve mon ouvrage 
contre l'atheisme, je crus ma refutation tres orthodoxe, je 
la relus, et je la trouvai bien eloignee de l'etre. II y a des 
endroits qui ne saurait paraitre sans effaroucher les timides 
et scandaliser les devots. Un petit mot qui m'est echappe 
sur l'eternite du monde me ferait lapider dans votre patrie, 
si j'y etais ne particulier, et que je l'eusse fait imprimer. 
Je sens que je n'ai point du tout ni Fame ni le style theo- 
logique." 10 Voltaire, in his "petite drolerie en faveur de 
la Divinite" (as he called his work) and in his letters, could 

s Vol. LXVI, p, 432. 

9 Vol. LXVI, p. 563. 

10 Vol. LXVI, p. 386. 



58 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



not find terms harsh enough in which to condemn the Sys- 
teme de la Nature. He called it " un chaos, un grand mal 
moral, un ouvrage de tenebres, un peche contre la nature, 
un systeme de la folie et de l'igmorance," and wrote to De- 
lisle de Sales : " Je ne vois pas que rien ait plus avili notre 
siecle que cette enorme sottise." 11 Voltaire seemed to grow 
more bitter about Holbach's book as time went on. His 
letters and various works abound in references to it, and it is 
difficult to determine his motives. He was accused, as 
has been suggested, by Holbach's circle "de caresser les 
gens en place, et d'abandonner ceux qui n'y sont plus." 12 
M. Avenel believed that he suspected Holbach himself of 
making these accusations. Voltaire's letter to the Due de 
Richlieu, Nov. i, 1770, 13 seems to give them foundation. 

A very different reaction was that of Goethe and his uni- 
versity circle at Strasburg to whom the Systeme de la Nature 
appeared a harmless and uninteresting book, " grau," " cim- 
merisch," "totenhaft," "die echte Quintessenz der Greisen- 
heit." To these fervent young men in the youthful flush of 
romanticism, its sad, atheistic twilight seemed to cast a veil 
over the beauty of the earth and rob the heaven of stars ; and 
they lightheardedly discredited both Holbach and Voltaire in 
favor of Shakespeare and the English romantic school. 
One would look far for a better instance of the romantic re- 
action which set in so soon and so obscured the clarity of the 
issues at stake in the eighteenth century thought. 14 

11 Vol. LXVI, p. 394- 

12 Vol. XXVIII, p. 493- 

13 Vol. LXVI, p. 469. 

14 Goethe, Wahrheit und Dichtung, nth Book, Goethe's Werke, 
Stuttgart, Vol. 19, p. 55. 

Auf philosophische Weise erleuchtet und gefodert zu werden, hatten 
wir keinen Trieb noch Hangiuber religiose Gegenstande glaubten wir 
uns selbst aufgeklart zu haben, und so war der heftige Streit franzo- 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 59 

The leading refutations directed explicitly against the 
Systeme de la Nature are : 

1. 1770, Rive, Abbe J. J., Lettres philosophiques contre le 

Systeme de la Nature. (Portefeuille hebdomadaire 
de Bruxelles.) 

2. Frederick II., Examen critique du iivre intitule, Sys- 

teme de la Nature. (Political Miscellanies, p. 175.) 

3. Voltaire, Dieu, Reponse de M. de Voltaire au Systeme 

de la Nature. Au chateau de Ferney, 1770, 8 vo, 
PP- 34- 

sischer Philosophen mit dem Pfafftum uns ziemlich gleichgiiltig. 
Verbotene, zum Feuer verdammte Biicher, welche damals grossen 
Larmen machten, iibten keine Wirkung auf uns. Ich gedenke statt 
aller des Systeme de la Nature, das wir aus Neugier in die Hand 
nahmen. Wir begriffen nicht, wie ein solches Buch gefahrlich sein 
konnite. Es kam uns so grau, so cimmerisch, so totenhaft vor, das 
wir Miihe hatten, seine Gegenwart auszuhalten, dass wir davor wie 
vor einem Gespenste schauderten. Der Verfasser glaubt sein Buch 
ganz eigens zu empfehlen, wenn er in der Vorrede versichert, dass er, 
als ein abgelebter Greis, soeben in die Grube stiegend, der Mit- und 
Nachwelt die Wahrheit verkiinden wolle. Wir lachten ihn aus : denn 
wir glaubten bemerkt zu haben, dass von alten Leuten eigentlich an der 
Welt nichts geschatzt werde, was liebenswiirdig und gut an ihr ist. 
" Alte Kirchen haben dunkle Glaser " " Wie Kirschen und Beeren 
schmecken, muss mann Kinder und Sperlinge fragen" — dies waren 
unsere Lust- und Leibworte: und so schien uns jenes Buch, als die 
rechte Quintessenz der Greisenheit, unschmachhaft, ja abgeschmackt 
Alles sollte notwendig sein und deswegen kein Gott. " Konnte es denn 
aber nicht auch notwendig einen Gott geben?" fragten wir. Dabei 
gestanden wir freilich, das wir uns den Notwendigkeiten der Tage und 
Nachte, der Jahrszeiten, der klimatischen Einflusse, der physichen und 
animalischen Zustande nicht wohl entziehen konnten : doch fuhlten wir 
etwas in uns, das als vollkommene Willkiir erschien, und wieder etwas, 
das sich mit dieser Willkiir ins Gleichgewicht zu setzen suchte. Die 
Hoffnung, immer verniinftiger zu werden, uns von den aussern Dingen, 
ja von uns selbst immer unabhangiger zu machen, konnten wir nicht 
aufgeben. Das Wort Freiheit klingt so schon, dass mann es nicht 
entbehren konnte und wenn es einen Irrtum bezeichnete. 

Keiner von uns hatte das Buch hinausgelesen ; denn wir fanden uns 
in der Erwartung getauscht, in der wir es auf geschlagen hatten. 



60 BARON D'HOLBACH 

4. 1 77 1, Bergier, Abbe N. F., Examen du materialisme, 
ou Refutation du Systeme de la Nature. Paris, Hum- 
bolt, 1 77 1, 2 vols., i2mo. 

5. Camuset, Abbe J. N., Principes contre 1'incredulite, a 

roccasion du Systeme de la Nature. Paris, Pillot, 
1 771, i2mo, pp. viii + 335. 

6. Castillon, J. de (Salvemini di Castiglione), Observa- 

tions sur le livre intitule, Systeme de la Nature. Ber- 
lin, Decker, 1771, 8vo. (40 sols broche.) 

System der Natur ward angekiindigt und wir hofften also wirklich 
etwas von der Natur, unsere Abgotten, zu erfahren. Physik und 
Chemie, Himmels- und Erdbeschriebung, Naturgeschichte und Ana- 
tomie und so manches andere hatte nun zeit Jahren und bis auf den 
letzten Tag uns immer auf die geschmuchte grosse Welt hingeweisen, 
und wir hatten gern von Sonnen und Sternen, von Planeten und 
Monden, von Bergen, Thalern, Fliissen und Meeren und von allem, was 
dann lebt und webt, das Nahere sowie das Allgemeinere erfahren. Das 
hierbei wohl manches vorkommen miisste, was dem gemeinen Men- 
schen als schadlich, der Geistlichkeit als gefahrlich, dem Staat als un- 
zulassig erschienen mochte, daran hatten wir keinen Zweifel, und wir 
hofften, dieses Biichlein sollte nicht unwiirdig die Feuerprobe be- 
stauden haben. Allein wie hohl und leer ward uns in deiser tristen 
Atheistischen Halbnacht zu Mute, in welcher die Erde mit alien ihren 
Gebilden, der Himmel mit alien seinen Gestirnen verschwand ! Eine 
Materie sollte sein von Ewigkeit und von Ewigkeit her bewegt, und 
sollte nun mit dieser Bewegung rechts und links und nach alien Seiten 
ohne weiteres die unendlichen Phanomene des Daseins hervorbringen. 
Dies alles waren wir sogar zufrieden gewesen, wenn der Verfasser 
wirklich aus seiner bewegten Materie die Welt vor unsern Augen auf- 
gebaut hatte. Aber er mochte von der Natur so wenig wissen als wir ; 
denn indem er einige allgemeine Begriffe hingepfahlt, verlasst er sie 
sogleich, um dasjenige, was hoher als die Natur oder als hohere 
Natur in der Natur erschient, zur materiellen schweren, zwar bewegten, 
aber doch richtungs- und gestaltlosen Natur zu verwandeln, und glaubt 
dadurch recht viel gewonnen zu haben. Wenn uns jedoch dieses 
Buch einigen Schaden gebracht hat, so war es der, das wir alien 
Philosophic, besonderers aber der Metaphysick recht herzlich gram 
wurden, und bleiben, dagegen aber auf lebendige Wissen, Erfahren, 
Thun und Dichten uns nur desto lebhafter und leidenschaftlicher hin- 
warfen. 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 6l 

7. Rochford, Dubois de, Pensees diverses contre le systeme 
des materialists, a l'occasion d'un ecrit intitule; Sys- 
teme de la Nature. Paris, Lambert, 1771, i2mo. 

8. 1773, L'Impie demasque, ou remontrance aux ecrivains 
incredules. Londres, Heydinger, 1773. 

9. Holland, J. H., Reflexions philosophiques sur le Sys- 

teme de la Nature. Paris, 1773, 2 vols., 8vo. 

10. 1776, Buzonniere, Nouel de, Observations sur un ouv- 

rage intitule le Systeme de la Nature. Paris, Debure, 
pere, 1776, 8vo, pp. 126. (Prix 1 livre, 16 sols 
broche. ) 

11. 1780, Fangouse, Abbe, La religion prouvee aux incre- 

dules, avec une lettre a l'auteur du Systeme de la Na- 
ture par un homme du monde. Paris, Debure l'aine, 
i2mo, p. 150. Same under title Reflexions impor- 
tantes sur la religion, etc., 1785. 

12. 1788, Paulian, A. J., Le veritable systeme de la nature, 

etc., Avignon, Niel, 2 vols., i2mo. 

13. 1803, Mangold, F. X. von, Unumstossliche Wider le- 

gung des Mater ialismus gegen den Verfasser des 
Systems der Natur. Augsburg, 1803. 
Of these and other refutations of materialism such as 
Saint-Martin's Des erreurs et de la verite, Dupont de 
Nemours' Philosophie de Vunivers, Delisles de Sales Phi- 
losophic de la nature, etc., which are not directed explicitly 
against the Systeme de la Nature, the works of Voltaire and 
Frederick the Great are the most interesting but by no 
means the most serious or convincing. Morley finds Vol- 
taire very weak and much beside the point, especially in his 
discussion of order and disorder in nature which Holbach 
had denied. Voltaire's argument is that there must be an 
intelligent motor or cause behind nature (p. 7). This is 
God (p. 8). He admits at the outset that all systems are 



62 BARON D'HOLBACH 

mere dreams but he continues to insist with a dogmatism 
equal to Holbach's on the validity of his dream. He re- 
peatedly asserts without foundation that Holbach's system is 
based on the false experiment of Needham (pp. 5, 6), and 
even goes so far as to ridicule the evolutionary hypothesis 
altogether (p. 6). He speaks of the necessity of a belief 
in God, by a kind of natural logic. God and matter exist 
in the nature of things, " Tout nous announce un Etre su- 
preme, rien ne nous dit ce qu'il est." God himself seems 
to be a kind of fatalistic necessity. " C'est ce que vous appel- 
lerez Nature et c'est ce que j'appelle Dieu.". At the end he 
shifts the argument from the base of necessity to that of 
utility. Which is the more consoling doctrine? If the 
idea of God has prevented ten crimes I hold that the entire 
world should embrace it (p. 2j). As Morley has said, such 
arguments could scarcely have convinced Voltaire himself. 

Frederick was surprised that Voltaire and D'Alembert 
had found anything good in the book. His refutation was 
more methodical than that of Voltaire, who called it a 
" homage to the Divinity " but wrote to D'Alembert that it 
was written in the style of a notary. Two other refutations 
emanating from the Academy of Berlin were those of 
Castillon and Holland. The first of these is a very heavy 
and learned work, formidable and forbidding in its logic. 
Castillon reduces Holbach's propositions to three. The 
self-existence of matter, the essential relation of movement 
to it, and the possibility of deriving everything from it or 
some mode of it. Castillon concludes after five hundred 
pages of reasoning that matter is contingent, movement not 
inherent in it, and that purely spiritual beings exist in inde- 
pendence of it. Hence the Systeme de la Nature is a " long 
and wicked error." 

Holland's is a still more serious work, which the Sorbonne 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 63 

recommended strongly as an antidote against Holbach's 
Systeme which it qualified as "une malhereuse production 
que notre siecle doit rougir d'avoir enfantee." But when it 
was discovered that Holland was a Protestant his work was 
condemned forthwith, Jan. 17, 1773. 

Bergier's refutation is interesting as an attack from a 
churchman of extraordinary keenness and insight into the 
progress of the new philosophy. In the Systeme de la Na- 
ture he recognized the hand of the author of La Contagion 
sacree and the Essai sur les prejuges and dealt with it as he 
did the Christianisme devoile. Buzonniere, Rochfort and 
Fangouse are milder and more naive in their demonstrations 
and their works are of no weight or interest. L'Impie 
demasque is a brutal work which qualifies Holbach as a 
"vile apostle of vice and crime," and the Systeme de la 
Nature as the most impudent treatise on atheism that has 
yet dishonored the globe, — one which covers the century 
with shame and will be the scandal of future generations. 

The work of Paulian is of a different sort. Coming com- 
paratively late, it attempted to review the hostile opinions 
of many years and then mass them in an overwhelming 
final attack on the Systeme de la Nature. To this end 
Paulian rewrites the entire book chapter by chapter, giving 
the " true version." He then reviews Holland's outline and 
Bergier's comments, together with seven articles directed 
explicitly against the Systeme de la Nature in such works as 
the Lettres Helviennes, of Abbe Barruel, Diet, des Philoso- 
phes, Diet, anti-philosophe, his own Diet, theologique, etc., 
besides many other writings against the new philosophy in 
general. He then reviews articles by members of the philos- 
ophic school against materialism and then goes back to Hol- 
bach's sources, Diderot, Bayle, Spinoza, Lucretius, Epicurus, 



64 BARON D'HOLBACH 

etc. The work is not scholarly but comprehensive and evi- 
dently discouraged further formal refutations. 

The Systeme de la Nature had many critics in the stormy 
days that followed 1789. Delisle de Sales found it a mon- 
strosity, — a fratras; La Harpe called it an infamous book, 
"un amas de betises qu' on ose appeler philosophic, incon- 
cevables inepties, une immense echafaudage de mensonge 
et d' invective " ; M. Villemain is much more calm and fair; 
Lord Brougham, like Damiron, Buzonniere, and many 
others, found it seductive but full of false reasoning; Ler- 
minier was so severe that St.-Beuve was moved to defend 
Holbach against him. Samuel Wilkinson, the- English 
translator of 1820, is one of the few whose criticism is at all 
favorable. Holbach has always appealed to a certain type 
of radical mind and his translators and editors have gen- 
erally been men who were often over-enthusiastic. For 
example, Mr. Wilkinson says of the Systeme de la Nature, 1 * 
"No work, ancient or modern, has surpassed it in the 
eloquence and sublimity of its language or in the facility 
with which it treats the most abstruse and difficult subjects. 
It is without exception the boldest effort the human mind 
has yet produced in the investigation of Morals and Theol- 
ogy. — The republic of letters has never produced another 
author whose pen was so well calculated to emancipate man- 
kind from all those trammels with which the nurse, the 
school master, and the priest have successively locked up 
their noblest faculties, before they were capable of reason- 
ing and judging for themselves." 

It seems unnecessary to analyze the Systeme de la Nature. 
This has been done by Damiron, Soury, Fabre, Lange, 
Morley, the historians of philosophy, and encyclopaedists; 
and the book itself is easily available in the larger libraries. 

15 Vol. II, p. 261, ed. 1820. 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 65 

The substance of Holbach's philosophy is susceptible of 
clearer treatment apart from it or any one of his books, 
although it permeates all of them. 

M. Jules Soury has said, in describing a certain type of 
mind : " II est d'heureux esprits, des ames fortes et saines, 
que n'effraie point le silence eternel des espaces infinis ou 
s'aneantissait la raison de Pascal. Naives et robustes 
natures, males et vigoureux penseurs, qui gardent toute la 
vie quelque chose des dons charmants de la jeunesse et de 
enfance meme, une foi vive dans le temoinage immediat de 
nos sens et de notre conscience, une humeur alerte, toute de 
joyeuse ardeur, et comme une intrepidite d'esprit que 
rien n'arrete. Pour eux tout est clair et uni ; ou a peu pres, 
et la ou ils soupgonnent quelque bas-bond insondable, ils se 
detournent et poursuivent fierement leur chemin. Comme 
cet Epicurien dont parle Ciceron au commencement du De 
natura deorum, ils ont toujours l'air de sotir de l'assemblee 
des dieux et de descendre des intermondes d'Epicure." 

Such was Holbach. His philosophy is based on the 
child-like assumption that things are as they seem, provided 
they are observed with sufficient care by a sufficient number 
of people. This brings us at once to the very heart of Hol- 
bach's method which was experimental and inductive to the 
last degree. Holbach was nourished on what might be 
called scientific rather than philosophical traditions. As 
M. Tourneux has pointed out, he had been a serious student 
of the natural sciences, especially those connected with the 
constitution of the earth. These studies led him to see the 
disparity between certain accepted and traditional cos- 
mologies and a scientific interpretation of the terrestrial 
globe and the forms of life which flourish upon it. Find- 
ing the supposed sacred and infallible records untrustworthy 
in one regard, he began to question their veracity at other 



66 BARON D'HOLBACH 

points. Being of a critical frame of mind, he took the 
records rather more literally than a sympathetic, allegorical 
apologist would have done, although it cannot be said that 
he used much historical insight. After having studied the 
sacred texts for purposes of writing or having translated 
other men's studies on Moses, David, the Prophets, Jesus, 
Paul, the Christian theologians and saints, miracles, etc., 
he concluded that these accounts were untrustworthy and 
mendacious. He knew ancient and modern philosophy and 
found in the greater part of it an unwarranted romantic or 
theological trend which his scientific training had caused 
him to suspect. It must be admitted that however false or 
illogical Holbach's conclusions may be considered, he was 
by no means ignorant of the subjects he chose to treat, as 
some of his detractors would have one believe. His theory 
of knowledge was that of Locke and Condillac, and on this 
foundation he built up his system of scientific naturalism 
and dogmatic atheism. 

His initial assumption is, as has been suggested, that ex- 
perience (application reiteree des sens) and reason are trust- 
worthy guides to knowledge. By them we become con- 
scious of an external objective world, of which sentient 
beings themselves are a part, from which they receive im- 
pressions through their sense organs. These myriad im- 
pressions when compared and reflected upon form reasoned 
knowledge or truth, provided they are substantiated by re- 
peated experiences carefully made. That is, an idea is said 
to be true when it conforms perfectly with the actual ex- 
ternal object. This is possible unless one's senses are de- 
fective, or one's judgment vitiated by emotion and passion. 

Holbach's contention is that if one applies experience and 
reason to the external universe, or nature, " ce vaste assem- 
blage de tout ce qui existe"; it reveals a single objective 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 67 

reality, i. e., matter, which is in itself essentially active 
or in a state of motion. 

From matter in motion are derived all the phenomena 
that strike our senses. All is matter or a function of it. 
Matter, then, is not an effect, but a cause. It is not caused ; 
it is from eternity and of necessity. The cardinal point in 
Holbach's philosophy is an inexorable materialistic neces- 
sity. Nothing, then, is exempt from the laws of physics 
and chemistry. Inorganic substance and organic life fall 
into the same category. Man himself with all his differ- 
entiated faculties is but a function of matter and motion in 
extraordinary complex and involved relations. Man's im- 
putation to himself of free will and unending consciousness 
apart from his machine is an idle tale built on his desires, 
not on his experiences nor his knowledge of nature. This im- 
putation of a will or soul to nature, independent of it or in 
any sense above it, is a still more idle one derived from his 
renunciation of the witness of his senses and his following 
after the phantoms of his imagination. It is ignorance or 
disregard of nature then that has given rise to supernatural 
ideas that have "no correspondence with true sight," or, as 
Holbach expressed it, have no counterpart in the external 
object. In other words, theology, or poetry about God, as 
Petrarch said, is ignorance of natural causes reduced to a 
system. 

Man is a purely natural or physical being, like a tree or a 
stone. His so-called spiritual nature (l'homme morale) is 
merely a phase of his physical nature considered under a 
special aspect. He is all matter in motion, and when that 
ceases to function in a particular way, called life, he ceases 
to be as a conscious entity. He is so organized, how- 
ever that his chief desires are to survive and render his 
existence happy. By happiness Holbach means the pres- 



68 BARON D'HOLBACH 

ence of pleasure and the absence of pain. In all his 
activity, then, man will seek pleasure and avoid pain. 
The chief cause of man's misery or lack of well being is his 
ignorance of the powers and possibilities of his own nature 
and the Universal Nature. All he needs is to ascertain his 
place in nature and adjust himself to it. From the begin- 
ning of his career he has been the dupe of false ideas, espe- 
cially those connected with supernatural powers, on whom he 
supposed he was dependent. But, if ignorance of nature 
gave birth to the Gods, knowledge of nature is calculated 
to destroy them and the evils resulting from them, the in- 
troduction of theistic ideas into politics and morals. In a 
word, the truth, that is, correct ideas of nature is the one 
thing needful to the happiness and well-being of man. 

The application of these principles to the given situation 
in France in 1770 would obviously have produced unwel- 
come results. Holbach's theory was that religion was 
worse than useless in that it had inculcated false and per- 
nicious ideas in politics and morals. He would do away 
completely with it in the interest of putting these sciences on 
a natural basis. This basis is self-interest, or man's in- 
evitable inclination toward survival and the highest degree 
of well-being, "L'objet de la morale est de faire connaitre 
aux hommes que leur plus grande interet exige qu'ils prati- 
querent la vertu ; le but du gouvernement doit etre de la leur 
faire pratiquer. 

Government then assumes the functions of moral re- 
straint formally delegated to religion ; and punishments ren- 
der virtue attractive and vice repugnant. Holbach's theory 
of social organization is practically that of Aristotle. Men 
combine in order to increase the store of individual well- 
being, to live the good life. If those to whom society has 
delegated sovereignty abuse their power, society has the 



THE SYSTEME DE LA NATURE 69 

right to take it from them. Sovereignty is merely an agent 
for the diffusion of truth and the maintenance of virtue, 
which are the prerequisites of social and individual well- 
being. The technique of progress is enlightenment and 
good laws. 

Nothing could be clearer or simpler than . Holbach's sys- 
tem. As Diderot so truly said, he will not be quoted on 
both sides of any question. His uncompromising atheism 
is the very heart and core of his system and clarifies the 
whole situation. All supernatural ideas are to be aban- 
doned. Experience and reason are once for all made 
supreme, and henceforth refuse to share their throne or 
abdicate in favor of faith. Holbach's aim was as he said 
to bring man back to nature and render reason dear to him. 
" II est tempts que cette raison injustement degrade quitte un 
ton pusillamine qui la rendront complice du mensonge et du 
delire." 

If reason is to rule, the usurper, religion, must be ejected; 
hence atheism was fundamental to his entire system. He 
did not suppose by any means that it would become a 
popular faith, because it presupposed too much learning and 
reflection, but it seemed to him the necessary weapon of a 
reforming party at that time. He defines an atheist as 
follows : " C'est un homme, qui detruit des chimeres nuisibles 
au genre humain, pour ramener les hommes a la nature, a 
l'experience, a la raison. C'est un penseur qui, ayant medite 
la matiere, ses proprietes et ses fagons d'agir, n'a pas besoin, 
pour expliquer les phenomenes de l'univers et les operations 
de la nature, d'imaginer des puissances ideales, des intelli- 
gences imaginaire, des etres de raison; qui loin de faire 
mieux connaitre cette nature, ne font que la rendre capri- 
cieuse, inexplicable, et meconnaissable, inutile au bonheur 
des hommes." 



APPENDIX 

HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 

The following letters of Holbach are extant : 
Holbach to Hume, Aug. 23, 1763. 
Holbach to Hume, Mar. 16, 1766. 
Holbach to Hume, July 7, 1766. 
Holbach to Hume, Aug. 18, 1766. 
Holbach to Hume, Sept. 7, 1766. 
These were printed in Hume's Private Correspondence, 
London, 1820, pp. 252-263, and deal largely with Hume's 
quarrel with Rousseau. 

Holbach to Garrick, June 16, 1765. 
Holbach to Garrick, Feb. 9, 1766. 
These two letters are in manuscript in Lansdowne House, 
Coll. Forster, and were published by F. A. Hedgcock, David 
Garrick et ses amis frangais. Paris, 191 1, pp. 251-253. 
Holbach to Wilkes, Aug., 1746, 9 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 

Vol. 30867, p. 14). 
Holbach to Wilkes, Dec. 10, 1746 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 

Vol. 30867, p. 18). 
Holbach to Wilkes, May 22, 1766 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 

Vol. 30869, p. 39). 
Holbach to Wilkes, Nov. 9, 1766 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 

Vol. 30869, p. 81). 
Holbach to Wilkes, Dec. 10, 1767 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 

Vol. 30869, p. 173). 
Holbach to Wilkes, July 17, 1768 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 
Vol. 30870, p. 59). 

70 



HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 71 

Holbach to Wilkes, Mar. 19, 1770 (Brit. Mus. Mss., 
Vol. 30871, p. 16). 

Holbach to Wilkes, April 27, 1775, 9 (Wilkes, Corre- 
spondence, London, 1804, Vol. IV, p. 176). 
The first seven of these letters are published for the first 
time in the present volume, pp. 6-1 1 and pp. 75-80. 

Holbach to Galiani, Aug. 11, 1769 (Critica, Vol. I, pp. 
488 sq.). 

Galiani to Holbach, April 7, 1770 (Galiani, Corre- 
spondence, Paris, 1890, Vol. I, p. 92). 

Galiani to Holbach, July 21, 1770 (Galiani, Corre- 
spondence, Paris, 1890, Vol. I, p. 199). 

Holbach to Galiani, Aug. 25, 1770 {Critica, Vol. I, 

p. 489). 
There are references to other letters in Critica which I 
have not been able to find. 

Holbach to Beccaria, Mar. 15, 1767, published by M. 
Landry Beccaria, Scritte e lettre inediti, 19 10, p. 146. 
Holbach to Malesherbes, April 6, 1761 (hitherto un- 
published). See present volume, p. 30. 

Holbach to Hume 
(Hume, Private Correspondence, London, 1820, 
pp. 252-263) 

Paris, the 23rd. of August, 

1763 

Sir, — 

I have received with the deepest sense of gratitude your very 
kind and obliging letter of the 8th. inst: favors of great men 
ought to give pride to those that have at least the merit of 
setting the value that is due upon them. This is my case with 
you, sir; the reading of your valuable works has not only in- 
spired me with the strongest admiration for your genius and 
amiable parts, but gave me the highest idea of your person and 



72 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



the strongest desire of getting acquainted with one of the 
greatest philosophers of my age, and of the best friend to man- 
kind. These sentiments have emboldened me to send formally, 
though unknown to you, the work you are mentioning to me. 
I thought you were the best to judge of such a performance, 
and I took only the liberty of giving a hint of my desires, in 
case it should meet with your approbation, nor was I surprized, 
or presumed to be displeased, at seeing my wishes disappointed. 
The reasons appeared very obvious to me; not withstanding 
the British liberty, I conceived there were limits even to it. 
However, my late friend's book has appeared since and there 
is even an edition of it lately done in England : I believe it will 
be relished by the friends of truth, who like to see vulgar errors 
struck at the root. This has been your continued task, sir; 
and you deserve for it the praises of all sincere wellwishers of 
humanity : give me leave to rank myself among them, and ex- 
press to you, by this opportunity you have been so kind as to 
give me, the fervent desire we have to see you in this country. 
Messrs. Stuart, Dempster, Fordyce, who are so good as to favor 
me with their company, have given me some hopes of seeing 
you in this metropolis, where you have so many admirers as 
readers, and as many sincere friends as there are disciples of 
philosophy. I don't doubt but my good friend M. Helvetius 
will join in our wishes, and prevail upon you to come over. I 
assure you, sir, you won't perceive much the change of the 
country, for all countries are alike for people that have the 
same minds. 

I am, with the greatest veneration and esteem, sir, your most 
obedient and most humble servant. 

D'Holbach. 
Rue Royale, butte St. Roch, a Paris. 

HOLBACH TO GARRICK 

(Coll. Forster, Vol. XXI; pub. Hedgcock, p. 253) 

Paris, Feb y e 9 th. 1766. 
I received, my very Dear Sir, with a great deal of pleasure, 



HOLBACITS CORRESPONDENCE 73 

your agreeable letter of y e 24th of January, but was very sorry 
to hear that you are inlisted in the numerous troup of gouty 
people. Tho' I have myself the honour of being of that tribe I 
dont desire my friends should enter into the same corporation. 
I am particularly griev'd to see you among the invalids for you 
have, more than any other, occasion for the free use of your 
limbs. However, don't be cross and peevish for that would 
be only increasing you distemper; and I charge you especially 
of not scolding that admirable lady M rs Garrick, whose sweet- 
ness of temper and care must be a great comfort in you cir- 
cumstances. I beg leave to present her with my respects and 
y e compliments of my wife, that has enjoyed but an indifferent 
state of health, owing to the severity of the winter. M r and 
Mad e Helvetius desire you both their best wishes and so do all 
your friends, for whom I can answer that every one of them 
keeps a kind remembrance of your valuable persons. Dr. Gem 
thinks you'll do very well to go to Bath, but his opinion is that 
a thin diet would be more serviceable to you than anything else ; 
believe he is in the right. Abbe Morellet pays many thanks for 
the answers to his queries, but complains of their shortness and 
laconism ; however it is not your fault. He is glad to hear you 
have receiv'd his translation of Beccaria's book, Des delits et 
des peines. and the compliments of our friend D r Gatti to 
whom I gave your direction before he went to London. Our 
friend Suard has entered his neck into the matrimonial halter ; 
we are all of us very sorry for it for we know that nothing 
combin'd with love, will at last make nothing at all. 

I was not much surpris'd at the particulars you are pleas'd to 
mention about Rousseau. According to the thorough knowl- 
edge I have had of him I look on that man as a mere philo- 
sophical quack, full of affectation, of pride, of oddities and 
even villainies ; the work he is going to publish justifies the 
last imputation. Is his memory so short as to forget that M r 
Grimm, for those 9 years past, has taken care of the mother of 
his wench or gouvernante whom he left to starve here after 
having debauch'd her daughter and having got her 3 or 4 times 
with child. That great philosopher should remember that Mr. 



74 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



Grimm has in his hands letters under his own hand-writing that 
prove him the most ungrateful dogg in the world. During his 
last stay in Paris he made some attempts to see M r Diderot, 
and being refused that favor, he pretended that Diderot en- 
deavoured to see him, but that himself had refused premptorily 
to comply with his request. I hope these particulars will suffice 
to let you know what you are to think of that illustrious man. 
I send you here a copy of a letter supposed to come from the 
King of Prussia, but done by M r Horace Walpole, whereby 
you'll see that gentleman has found out his true character. 
But enough of that rascal who deserves not to be in M r Hume's 
company but rather among the bears, of there are any in the 
mountains of Wales. 

I am surprized you have not receiv'd yet the Encyclopedie, 
for a great number of copies have been sent over already to 
England unless you have left your subscription here, where 
hitherto not one copy has been delivered for prudent reasons. 

We have had in the French Comedy a new play called Le 
Philosophie sans le savoir done and acted in a new stile, quite 
natural and moving : it has a prodigious success and deserves it 
extremely well. Marmontel will give us very soon upon the 
Italian stage his comical opera of La Bergere des Alpes. I 
hope it will prove very agreeable to the Publick, having been 
very much delighted by the rehearsal of it; the music was done 
by M r Cohaut who teaches my wife to play on the luth. We 
expect a tragedy of the Dutch Barnvelt. 

M r Wilkes is still in this town, where he intends to stay until 
you give him leave to return to his native country. We have 
had the pleasure of seeing M r Chanquion, your friend, who 
seems to be a very discerning gentleman and to whom in favor 
of your friendship I have shown all the politeness I could. I 
hear that S r James Macdonald has been ill at Parma, but is now 
recovered and in Rome. Abbe Galliani is still at Naples and 
stands a fair chance of being employ'd in the ministry there. 

Adieu, very dear Sir and remember your 
affectionate friend 
D'Holbach 



HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 75 

Holbach to Wilkes 
(Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 39) 

Paris the 22 d of May (1766) 
My dear Sir 

I am extreamely glad to know your lucky passage and happy 
arrival in your native country. I hope you know too well the 
sincere dispositions of my heart as to doubt of the friendship 
I have vowed to you for life ; it has been of too long a duration 
to be shaken by any circumstances, and especially by those that 
do honor to you. I shall be very happy if your affairs (that 
seem to be in a fair way) permit you to drop over very soon to 
spend some time in this place along with Miss Wilkes to whom 
Mad e D'Holbach and I pay our best compliments. I can easily 
paint to my imagination the pleasure you both felt at your first 
meeting ; everybody that has any sensibility must be acquainted 
with the grateful pangs in those moving circumstances. 

Your case with the hawker at your entry in London is very 
odd and whimsical you did extrememly well to humour the man 
in his opinion about Mr. Wilkes. I dare say if you had done 
otherwise his fist would have convinc'd you of the goodness of 
your cause, and then it would have been impossible for you to 
pass for a dead man any longer ; which however, I think was 
very necessary for you in the beginning. I expect with great 
eagerness the settlement of your affairs with the ministry to 
your own satisfaction; be persuaded, Dear Sir, that nobody 
interests himself in your happiness than myself, and nothing 
will conduce more to it than your steady attachment to the prin- 
ciples of honor and patriotism. 

If you don't find a way of disposing of the little packet, you 
need not take much trouble about it, and you may bring it back 
along with you, when you come to this place, as to the kind 
offers you are so good as to make me about commissions, ex- 
perience has taught me that it is unsafe to trust you with them, 
so I beg leave with gratitude to decline your proposals as that 
point. 



7 6 BARON D'HOLBACH 

All our common friends and acquaintances desire their best 
compliments to you, and believe me, my dear Sir. 
Your affectionate oblig'd humble servant 
D'Holbach 

Holbach to Wilkes 
(Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 81) 

Paris 9 ber 10th 1766 
My very Dear Sir. 

I receiv'd with the greatest pleasure the news of your lucky 
arrival in Engelland. You know the sentiments of my heart, 
and are undoubtedly convinc'd how much I wish for the good 
success of all your enterprises tho I am to be a great looser by 
it. I rejoice very heartily at the fine prospect you have now in 
view and don't doubt but the persons you mention will succeed 
if they are in good earnest : which is allways a little doubtful 
in people of that Kidney. 

We have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Wilkes three or 
four times since your departure, she is extreamly well and 
longs for the return of her friend Mile Helvetius the 20th of 
this month. 

Rousseau will very likely hate the English very cordially 
for making him pay so dear for his books, it is however a sign 
that he told us a lye when he pretended in his writings to have 
no books at all, as to his guitar he should buy a new one to tune 
his heart a little better than he did before. 

We have no news here, except the Election of M r Thomas as 
a member of the french academy. Marquis Beccaria is going 
to leave us very soon being obliged to return to Milan : Count 
Veri will at the same time set out for England. 

I'll be oblig'd to you for a copy or two of the book printed 
in holland you mentioned in your letter you may send it by some 
private opportunity to Miss Wilkes, with proper directions, a 
gentleman of our Society should be glad to get 2 copies of Bas- 
kervilles' virgil in octavo. 



HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 77 

Tho M r Davemport and Rousseau seem to be pleased very 
much with one another, I suppose they may very soon be tired 
of their squabbling, and the latter like the apostles will shake 
of against the barbarous Britons the dust of his feet. 

receive the hearty compliments of my wife and all our 
friends, you know the true sentiments of my heart for you, 
Dear Sir. I am with great sincerity 

your most obedient humble Servant 
D'Holbach 

Holbach to Wilkes 
(Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 173) 
Sear Sir 

I receiv'd with a great deal of pleasure your friendly letter 
from Ostende of the 26th. nov. I was extreamly glad to hear 
your happy arrival at that place, and do not doubt but you met 
with a lucky passage to Dover the following day, we are now 
enjoying the conversation of your British friends about elec- 
tions; that will not be tedious for you if, according to your 
hopes, you should succeed in your projects. 

I see by your letter that instead of coming back directly by 
Calais you intend to travel with Miss Wilkes throug Antwerp 
and the Low countries, which I should think not very advisable 
in this rigorous season of the year, for generally at that time the 
waters are lock'd up by the frost and travelling is bad et tedious 
and may be would prove hurtful to your tender fellow traveller 
to whom my wife and I desire our best compliments. Such a 
scheme will be more advantagious for you both and more con- 
formable to the wishes of your friends in this place. 

I hope your arrival in London will contribute to reconcile abbe 
Galliani to that place, where he complains of having not heard 
of the sun since he set his foot on British shore, however he 
may comfort himself for we have had very little of it in this 
country. The Abbe must be overjoy'd at the news of the Jesu- 
its being expell'd from his Native country for now he may say 



78 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum navigat aquor. We have no 
material news in this country except that the queen continues 
to be in a very bad state of health. 

If there is some good new romance I'll be oblig'd to bring it 
over along with you as well as a couple of french books call'd 
Militaire philosophe and Theologie portative in case you may 
easily find them in London, for we cannot get them here. I am 
told the works of one Morgan have been esteem'd in your 
country but I don't know the titles of them, if you should know 
them and meet with them with facility, I should be very much 
oblig'd to you provided you make me pay a little more than you 
have done hitherto for your commissions. 

All our common friends beg their compliments and I wish 
for your speedy return, and I am Sincerely 
Dear Sir 

Your faithful affectionate humble servant 
D'Holbach 
Paris the ioth of decemb. 1767 

Holbach to Wilkes 
(Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30870, p. 59) 

Grandval, 17th of July 1768 
Dear Sir 

I receiv'd with a great deal of pleasure your very agreable 
letter of the 28th of last month. I am extreamly glad that your 
generous soul is very far from sinking under the weight of 
these Misfortunes, and to see that you don't give up the hopes 
of carrying triumphantly your point notwithstanding the dis- 
couragements you have met with lately. I need not tell you 
how much your friends in Paris and I in particular interest our- 
selves in all the events that may befall you. Our old friendship 
ought to be a sure pledge of my sincere sentiments for you, and 
of my best wishes for your good success in all your undertak- 
ings. I believe you can do no better but to keep strictly to the 
rules you have laid down for your conduct, and I don't doubt 
but you'll find it will answer the best to your porpose. 



HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 



79 



I am very much oblig'd to you, Dear Sir, for the kind offers 
you make in your friendly letter. I have desir'd already M r 
Suard to bring over a few books lately published in your me- 
tropolis. I am very glad to hear that Gentleman is pleas'd 
with his journey. 

There's no possibility of getting for you a compleat sett of 
Callots engravings. Such a collection must be the business of 
many years ; it is to be found only after the decease of some 
curious men who have taken a great deal of trouble to collect 
them. I found indeed in two shops 8 or 10 of them, but the 
proofs (les epreuves) were very indifferent and they wanted 
to sell them excessively dear ; in general 200 guineas would pro- 
cure a collection very far from being compleat 

My wife and all our common acquaintence desire their best 
compliments to you and to Miss Wilkes and you know the senti- 
ments wherewith I am for ever 
Dear Sir 

your affectionate friend and 
very humble servant 
D'Holbach 

Holbach to Wilkes 
(Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30871, p. 16) 

Paris the 19th of March 1770 
Dear Sir 

I receiv'd with a due sense of gratitude the favour of your 
last letter, and was overjoy'd to hear from yourself that your 
long confinement as not been able hitherto to obstruct the lively 
flow of your spirits. A little more patience and you'll reach the 
end of all your misfortunes, that have been faithfully partaken 
by your friends in England and abroad, for my own part I wish 
most sincerely that everything for the future may turn to your 
profit and welfare, without hurting that of your country, to 
whom, as a lover of mankind, I am a well wisher. 

My wife desires her best compliments to you and your be- 



80 BARON D'HOLBACH 

loved Daughter, whom we both expect to see again with a great 
deal of pleasure in this country next month. Notwithstanding 
our bad circumstances we are making very great preparations 
for the Wedding of the Dauphin, and our metropolis begins 
already to be filled with foreigners that flock hither from all 
parts of the world, our friend M r D'Alainville is to set out at 
the end of April to fetch the Archdutchess at Strasbourg and 
bring mask (ed) (?) her different stages on the road to 
Versailles. 

We have no news in the literary world except that Voltaire 
is become lately le pere temp or el } that is to say the benefactor 
of the Capucins du pays de Gex where he lives, a title of which 
all his pranks seemd to exclude him, but grace you know, 
is omnipotent, and monks are not over nice when there is some- 
thing to be got by their condescension. 

If the hurry of affairs whould leave you any moments to read 
curious books I would advise you to peruse two very strange 
works lately publish'd viz Recherches philosophiques sur les 
americains le Systeme de la Nature par Mirabaud. I suppose 
you'll find them cheaper and more easily in London that at 
Paris. 

All your late acquaintances in this Town desire me to present 
you with their sincere compliments and best wishes ; as to mine 
you know that they have no other object but your Welfare. >. 

1 am, Dear Sir, for ever 

your most affectionate friend 

and humble servant 

D'Holbach 

P. S. Ill be very much oblig'd to you for sending over to me in 

2 vol. small ovtavo. 

Holbach to Wilkes 
(Wilkes, Correspondence, London, 1805, Vol. 4, p. 176) 

Paris, April 27; 1775 
"My Lord, 

" I received with the utmost gratitude your lordship's friendly 



HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 8 1 

letter of the 28th of March. (1775?) I should have done 
myself the honor of answering sooner to your kind propositions, 
if I had not been prevented by some gouty infirmities that have 
assailed in the beginning of this spring. I esteem myself very 
happy to find that the hurry of business, and your exhaltation 
to the rank of chief-magistrate, could not make you forget your 
friendship to me ; though my present circumstances do not per- 
mit me to make use of your friendly invitation, be persuaded 
my very dear lord that Madame D'Holbach and myself shall 
forever keep these signs of your kindness, in very grateful 
remembrance. 

We both desire out best compliments to your very amiable 
lady-mayoress : who acted so well her part lately in the Egyp- 
tian hall, to the satisfaction of that prodigious crowd you have 
been entertaining there. All members of our society that have 
had the happiness of being acquainted with you, desire to be 
kindly remembered ; and a continuation of your valuable friend- 
ship shall for ever be the utmost ambition 

my lord, 
of your most sincerely devoted 

D'Holbach". 

Galiani to Holbach 
(Galiani, Corresp., Vol. I, p. 199) 

Naples, le 21 Juillet, 1770 
Bonjour, mon cher Baron, 

J'ai vu le Systeme de la Nature. C'est la ligne ou finit la tris- 
tesse de la morne et seche verite, au-dela commence la gaite du 
roman. II n'y a rien de mieux que de se persuader que les des 
sont pipes: cette idee en enfante milles autres, et un nouveau 
monde se regenere. Le M. Mirabaud est un vrai abbe Terray 
de la metaphysique. II fait des reductions, des suspensions, 
et cause la banqueroute du savoir, du plaisir et de l'esprit hu- 
main. Mais vous allez me dire qu'aussi il y avait trop de non- 
valeurs: on etait trop endette, il courait trop de papiers non 



82 BARON D'HOLBACH 

reels sur la place. C'est vrai aussi, et voila pourquoi la crise est 
arrivee. 

Adieu, mon cher baron. Ecrivez-moi de longues lettres, 
pour que le plaisir en soit plus grand. Embrassez moi longue- 
ment la baronne, et soyez longue dans tout que vous faites, dans 
tout ce que vous patientez, dans tout ce que vous esperer. La 
longanimite est une belle vertu; c'est elle qui me fait esperer 
de revoir Paris. 

Adieu. 

HOLBACH TO GALIANI 

(Critica, Vol. I, 1903, p. 489) 

Grandval, le 25 d'aout 1770 
Bonjour, mon tres delicieux abbe, 

J'ai bien regu votre tres -precieuse lettre du 21 de juillet qui 
m'accuse la reception de celle que je vous avais ecrite le 3 de 
juin. Je vois que celle-ci a ete longtemps en route, attendu 
que M. Torcia a qui M. Diderot s'etait charge de la remettre, a 
encore trainasse quelque temps a Paris, suivant la louable cou- 
tume des voyageurs qui nous quittent toujours avec peine. 

Je suis bien aise que vous ayez lu le livre de Mirabaud qui 
fait un bruit affreux dans ce pays. L'abbe Bergier l'a deja 
refute tres-longuement et sa reponse paraitra cet hiver. La 
Sorbonne est, dit-on, occupee a detruire ce maudit Systems qui 
lui parait au moins heretique. Voltaire lui-meme se prepare 
a le pulveriser; en attendant nos seigneurs du Parlement y 
viennent d'y repondre par des fagots, ainsi qu'a quelque autres 
ouvrages de meme trempe. Ce qu'il -y a de f adieux c'est que 
l'ouvrage de V. qui a pour titre Dieu et les hommes a ete enve- 
loppe dans la meme condamnation, ce qui doit deplaire souve- 
rainement a l'auteur. Je me rappelle a cette occasion ce que M. 
Hume dit d'un catholique que Henri VIII fit conduire au 
bucher avec quelques heretiques, et dont le seul chagrin etait 
d'etre brule en si mauvaise compagnie. Nonobstant toutes ces 
refutations, il parait tous les jours quelques nouveaux ouvrages 
impies, au point que je suis tres surpris que la recolte ait ete si 



HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE 83 

bonne dans le royaume. En dernier lieu on vient de publier un 
ouvrage sous le titre de Droit des souverains sur les biens du 
clerge, qui, sans contenir des impietes n'en est pas moins de- 
plaisant pour cela: II va droit a la cuisine, et veut que pour 
liquider la dette nationale on vende tous les biens ecclesiasti- 
ques et que Ton met nos pontifes a la pension. Vous sentez 
qu'une proposition si mal sonnante n'a pu manquer de mettre le 
ciel en courroux; sa colere s'est decharge sur cinq ou six 
libraires et colporteurs qui ont ete mis en prison. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY— PART I 

EDITIONS OF HOLBACH'S WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL 

ORDER 

As the works of Holbach are not yet cataloged in the Bibliotheque 
Nationale, the following list is doubtless incomplete. The numbers 
given are those of the Bibliotheque Nationale and the British Museum 
where the books were used, except in cases where they were available 
in Boston, New York or Washington. 

Abbreviations 

B. N., Bibliotheque Nationale. 

B. M., British Museum. 

L. C, Library of Congress. 

C. U., Columbia University. 
H. U., Harvard University. 

U. T. S., Union Theological Seminary. 
G. T. S., General Theological Seminary. 

A. T. S., Andover Theological Seminary. 
N. Y., New York Public Library. 

B. P., Boston Public Library. 

Of about 120 editions consulted, C. U. had 13; U. T. S. 7; N. Y. 7; 
H. U. 6; B. P. 5; L. C. 4; A. T. S. 3; G. T. S. 1. There are 20 or more 
editions in existence that were not to be found in the library catalogs 
consulted. 

1752. Lettre a une dame d'un certain age sur l'etat present de l'Opera. 
En Arcadie aux depens de l'Academie Royale de Musique, 
1752. (Paris, 8vo, pp. 11.) 
B. M. 1103 b 21 (2). 

1752. Arret rendu a l'amphitheatre de l'Opera, sur la plainte du 
milieu du parterre intervenant dans la querelle des deux coins. 
(Paris, 1752, 8vo, pp. 16.) 
B. N. Yf 7726 (attributed to Diderot). 

1752. Art de la Verrerie, De Neri, Merret et Kunckel; auquel on a 
ajoute Le Sol Sine Veste D'Orschall; L'Helioscopium videndi 
sine veste solem Chymicum; Le Sol Non Sine Veste: Le 
Chapitre XI du Flora Saturnizans de Henckel, Sur la Vitrifica- 
tion des Vegetaux; Un Memoire sur la maniere de faire le 

85 



86 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Saffre; Le Secret des vraies Porcelaines de la Chine et de 
Saxe ; Ouvrages ou Ton trouvera la maniere de f aire le Verre et 
le Crystal, d'y porter des Couleurs, d'imiter les Pierres Pre- 
tieuses, de preparer et colorer les Emaux, de faire la Potasse, 
de peindre sur le Verre, de preparer des Vernis, de composer 
de Couvertes pour des Fayances et Poteries, d'extraire la Cou- 
leur Pourpre de l'Or, de contrefaire les Rubis, de faire le 
Soffre, de faire et peindre les Porcelaines, etc. Traduits de 
l'Allemand Par M. D. . . . A Paris Durand, rue St. Jacques, 
au Griffon. Pissot, Quai des Augustins, a la Sagesse. Avec 
Approbation et Privilege du Roi (in quarto). 

B. N. V. 1 1028. 

C. U. A n H 35 (Avery Library). 

1753. Mineralogie, ou description generate des substances- du regne 
mineral. Par Mr. Jean Gotshalk Wallerius, Professeur Royale 
de Chymie, de Metallurgie et de Pharmacie dans l'Universite 
d'Upsal, de l'Academie Imperiale des Curieux de la Nature. 
Ouvrage traduit de l'Allemand, A Paris, Chez Durand, rue S. 
Jacques, au Griffon. Pissot, Quai de Conti, a la Croix d'Or, 
MDCCLIII. Avec Approbation et Privilege du Roi (2 vols., 
8vo, pp. xlvii + 569 + 284) . Followed by (second title page) 
Hydrologie, ou description du regne aquatique, divises par 
classes, gendres, especes et varietes, avec la maniere de faire 
l'essai des eaux (256 p. ). 

B. N., S. 1992 (2). 

B. M. 987 h. 9-10. 

. Ibid. (Paris, Herissant, Durand, 1759, 2 vols., 8vo.) N. Y., 

P. W. D. 

H. U. Geol. 7257-59. 

B. M. 970 h.l. 
1756. Introduction a la Mineralogie; ou connoissance des eaux, des 
sues terrestres, des sels, des terres, des pierres, des mineraux, et 
des metaux : avec une description abregee des operations de 
metallurgie. Ouvrage posthume de M. J. F. Henckel, publie 
sous le titre de Henckelius in Mineralogia redivivus et traduit 
de l'Allemand. A Paris, Chez Guillaume Cavelier, Libraire, 
rue S. Jacques, au Lys d'Or. MDCCLVI. Avec Approbation 
et Privilege du Roi. (2 vols., i2vo, pp. lxxi + 204 + 371.) 

B. N. 19930 (1). 

1758. Chimie metallurgique, Dans laquelle on trouvera la Theorie et 

la Pratique de cet Art. Avec des Experiences sur la Densite 

des Alliages des Metaux, et des demi-Metaux; et un Abrege de 

Docimastique. Avec Figures. Par M. C. E. Gellert, Conseiller 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 87 

des Mines de Saxe et de l'Academie Imperiale de Petersbourg. 
Ouvrages traduits de l'Allemand. A Paris, Chez Briasson, rue 
Saint Jacques; Avec Approbation et Privelege. (2 vols., i2mo, 
pp. xii + 296 + xvii + 351.) 

B. N., R. 37032 (3). 
I 7S9- Traites de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de mineralogie et de 
metallurgie. (Paris, 1759, 3 vols., i2mo.) (General title.) 
Tome I. 

L'Art des Mines, ou Introduction aux connoisances neces- 
saires pour l'exploitation des mines metalliques avec une traite 
des exhalaisons minerals ou moufettes, et plusieurs memoires 
sur differens sujects d'Histoire Naturelle- Avec figures. Par 
M. Jean Gotlob Lehmann, Docteur en Medecine, Conseiller 
des Mines de Sa Majeste Prussienne, de l'Academie Royale des 
Sciences de Berlin et de celle des Sciences utiles de Mayence. 
Traduit de l'Allemand. A Paris, Chez Jean Thomas Herrisant 
MDCCLIX. Avec Approbation et Privilege du Roi. 

Tome II. Traite de la formation des metaux et de leurs 
matrices ou minieres, ouvrage fonde sur les principes de la 
physique et de la mineralogie et confirme par des experiences 
chymiques. Par M. J. G. Lehmann, etc. Traduit de l'Allemand. 

Tome III. Essai d'une Histoire Naturelle des couches de la 
terre. Dans lequel on traite de leur formation, de leur situation, 
des mineraux, des metaux et des fossiles qu'elles contiennent. 
Avec des considerations physiques sur les causes des Tremble- 
ments de Terre et de leur propagation. Ouvrages traduits de 
l'Allemand, et augmentes de Notes du Traducteur etc. 

H. U, M. Z. 

B. M. 900 c. 16-18. 
1759. Les plaisirs de l'imagination, poeme en trois chants, par M. 
Akenside. Traduit de l'anglais. A Amsterdam, Arkstee et 
Merkus, et se trouve a Paris chez Pissot, Quai de Conti 
MDCCLIX (8vo). 

B. N. 2 ex. Yk 2362 et 2498. 

B. M. 1 162 f 20. 

. Ibid. Les plaisirs de l'imagination, poeme en trois chants, Par 

Akenside, traduit de l'Anglais par le baron d'Holbach, aug- 
mente de Notes historiques et litteraires, de la vie de l'auteur 
et du Traducteur, par Pissot.— Paris, Hubert MDCCCVI 
(i8o6-i8vo). 

B. N. Yk 2363. 

B. M. 1065 b 20(2). 



88 BARON D'HOLBACH 

1760. Pyritologie, ou Histoire Naturelle de la Pyrite, ouvrage dans 
lequel on examine l'origine, la nature, les proprieties et les 
usages de ce Mineral important, et de la plupart des autres 
Substances du meme Regne: on y a joint le Flora Saturnisans 
ou L'Auteur demontre 1' Alliance qui se trouve entre les Vege- 
taux et les Mineraux; et les Orpuscules Mineralogiques, Qui 
comprennent un Traite de l'Appropriation, un Traite de 
L'Origine des Pierres, plusieurs Memoires sur la Chymie et 
l'Histoire Naturelle, avec un Traite des Maladies des Mineurs 
et des Fondeurs. Par M. Jean-Frederic Henkel, Docteur en 
Medicine, Conseiller des Mines du Roi de Pologne, Electeur de 
Saxe; de TAcademie Imperiale des Curieux de la Nature et de 
celle de Berlin. Ouvrages Traduit de l'Allemand [by Baron 
d'Holbach and M., Charas] a Paris, Chez Jean Thomas Heris- 
sant, Libraire, Rue S. Jacques, a S. Paul et a S. Hilaire. 
MDCCLX Avec Approbation et Privilege du Roi. (Paris, 
1760, quarto, pp. xvi + 524.) 

B. N. 5324. 

B. M. 34 c 15. 
1760. Oeuvres Metallurgiques de M., Jean-Christian Orschall, In- 
specteur des Mines de S. A. S. le Land-grave de Hesse-Cassel. 
Contenant I. L'Art de la Fonderie; II. Un Traite de la Siqua- 
tion; III. Le Traite de la Maceration des Mines; IV. Le Traite 
des Trois Merveilles; (Traduit de l'Allemand) Le prix est de 50 
sols broche et de 3 liv. relie. A Paris, Chez Hardy, Libraire, rue 
S. Jacques au dessus de celle de la Parcheminerie a la Colonne 
d'Or. MDCCLX. Avec Approbation et Privilege du Roi. 
(i2mo, pp. + 394) 

B. N., S 19,992. 

1764. Recueil des memoires les plus interessants de chymie, et d'his- 
toire naturelle, contenus dans les actes de l'Academie d'Upsal, 
et dans les Memoires de l'Academie Royale des Sciences de 
Stockholm; Publies depuis 1720 jusqu'en 1760. Traduits du 
Latin et de l'Allemand. A Paris, Chez Pierre-Fr. Didot, le 
jeune, Quai des Augustins, a S. Augustin. MDCCLXIV. Avec 
Approbation et Privilege du Roi. (2 vols., i2mo, pp. viii + 687.) 

B. N. R 15483 (4). 

1765. Histoire du regne de la Reine Anne d'Angleterre, contenant Les 
Negociations de la paix d'Utrecht, et les demeles qu'elle occa- 
sionna en Angleterre. Ouvrage posthume du Docteur Jonathan 
Swift. Doyen de S. Patrice en Irelande: Publie sur un Manu- 
scrit corrige de la propre main de l'Auteur, et traduit de 
l'Anglais par M. . . [d'Holbach and Eidous]. A Amsterdam, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 89 

Chez Marc-Michel Rey, et Arkstee et Merkus. MDCCLXV. 
(i2mo, pp. xxiv + 416.) 

B. N. 8vo Nc 1718. 
1766. Traite du Soufre, ou Remarques sur la dispute qui s'est elevee 
entre les chymistes, au sujet du Soufre, tant commun, combus- 
tible ou volatil, que fixe, etc. Traduit de l'Aliemand de Stahl. 
A Paris, Chez Pierre-Francois Didot, le jeune. Quai de 
Augustins a Saint-Augustin. MDCCLXVI. Avec Approbation 
et Privilege du Roi. (i2mo, pp. 392.) 

B. N., R 51709- 

B. M. 233 b 15. 

1766. L'Antiquite devoilee par ses usages, ou Examen critique des 
principales Opinions, Ceremonies et Institutions religieuses et 
politiques des differens Peuples de la Terre. Par feu M., 
Boulanger. Homo, quod rationis est particeps, consequentiam 
cernit causas rerum videt, earumque progressus et quasi ante- 
cessiones non ignorat, similitudines comparat, rebus praesenti- 
bus adjungit at anectit futuras. Cicero, De Offic. Lib. I. C. 4. 

A Amsterdam, Chez Marc-Michel Rey, MDCCLXVI. ( Quarto 
pp. viii + 412.) 

B. N., E 690. 

C. U., A P. B 66 (Avery Library). 
. Ibid. (1766, 3 vols., i2mo.) 

B. N. *E 2446-2448. 

. Ibid. (1772, 3 vols., i2mo.) 

B. N. *E 2445 (VIII). 
B. M. 4506 a 1. 
— — . Ibid. (Amsterdam, 1777, 3 vols., i2mo, pp. lx + 355 + 391 + 
396.) 
B. M. 696 b 35. 

. Ibid. In Oeuvres de Boulanger T. I-IV En Suisse. De l'lm- 

primerie Philosophique MDCCXCI. (4 vols., i2mo.) 
B. N., Z 24316-243 19. 

. Ibid. In Oeuvres de Boulanger T. I— II Amsterdam. (Paris, 

2 vols., 8vo.) (Querard.) 

1767. Le Christianisme devoile, ou Examen des principes et des effets 

de la religion Chretienne. Par feu M., Boulanger. Superstitio 
error infanus est, amandos timet, quos colit violat; quid enim 
interest, utrum Deos neges, an infames? Senec. Ep. 12. A 
Londres, MDCCLVI (Nancy, Leclerc, 1761, 8vo, pp. xxviii + 
295). 

B. N., D2 5305. 

B. M. 4016 bb 6. 

B. M., C 2863 (another copy with MS. notes by Voltaire). 



90 



BARON D'HOLBACH 



. Ibid. (Londres, 1767, 8vo, pp. xx + 236.) Printed at John 

Wilkes' private press in George St. Westminster, according to 
MS. note in title page. 
B. M. 4017 de. 13. 

. Ibid. (Londres, 1767, 8vo, pp. 244.) 

A. T. S. 611. 

. Ibid. (A Paris, Chez les Libraires Associes, 1767, 8vo, pp. 

xvii-f' 218.) 

B. N., D2 8364. 

. Ibid. (Londres [Amsterdam], 1767, i2mo.) 

B. M. 696 b 34- 

. Ibid. Oeuvres de Boulanger T. VII. (En Suisse de l'lmpri- 

merie philosophique, 1791, i2mo.) 
B. N., Z 23421. 

. Ibid. Oeuvres de Boulanger T. V, 1793. 

. Christianity Unveiled; being an examination of the principles 

and effects of the Christian Religion, from the French of 
Boulanger, Author of Researches into the Origin of Oriental 
Despotism, by W. M. Johnson. New York, 1795, printed at the 
Columbian Press by Robertson and Gowan for the editor and 
sold by the principal book sellers in the United States. (i2mo, 
pp. ix + 238.) 
B. M. 4017 de 4. 

B. M. 900 i. 1. (7) another copy with MS. Notes. 
B. P. . . . 7490 a 22. 

. Ibid. London, printed and published by T. Carlile, 55 Fleet St. 

1819 (8vo, pp. 98.) 
B. M. 4016 d. 13. 

. Ibid. The Deist, etc. Vol. II, published by R. Carlile, 1819. 

(8vo, pp. vii +' 125.) 
B. M. 4015 f 11. 

. El Cristianismo a descurbierto, 6 examen de los principios y 

efectos de la religion cristiana. Escrito en Frances por Bou- 
langer y traducido al castellano por S. D. V. . . . Londres en la 
emprenta de Davidson, 1821. (i2mo, pp. xxvi + 246.) 
B. M. 4016 df 6. 
1767. L'Esprit du clerge, ou Le Christianisme primitif vonge des entre- 
prises et des exces de nos Pretres modernes. Traduit de 
l'Anglois a Londres (Amsterdam) MDCCLXVII (2 vols. 8vo, 
pp. 2 + 10 + 240). 
B. M. Pp. 54- 
1767. De l'imposture sacerdotale, ou Recueil de Pieces sur le Clerge. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 91 

Traduites de l'Anglois. Londres (Amsterdam) MDCCLXVII. 
(i2mo, pp. 144- ) 

B. N., D2 8368 (7). 

Contains. Tableau fidele des papes. Traduit d'une Brochure 
Anglaise de M. Davisson, Publie sous le titre de a true picture 
of Popery, pp. 1-35. 

De l'insolence pontificale, ou des Pretentions ridicules du 
Pape et des Flatteurs de la Cour de Rome. Extrait de la Pro- 
fession de Foi du celebre Giannone, par. M. Davisson, pp. 36-54. 

Sermon. Sur les fourberies et les impostures du Clerge 
Romain, Traduit de l'Anglois sur une Brochure publiee a Lon- 
dres en 1735 par M. Bourn Birmingham, Sous le titre de Popery 
a Craft, pp. 55-^4- 

Le Pretrianisme oppose au Christianisme. Ou la Religion 
des Pretres comparee a celle de Jesus-Christ, ou examen de la 
difference qui se trouve entre les Apotres et les Membres du 
Clerge moderne. Publie en Anglois en 1720 sous le titre de 
Priestanity. Or a View of the disparity between the Apostles 
and the Modern Clergy, pp. 85-108. 

Des Dangers de l'Eglise, Traduit de Anglois sur une Brochure 
Publiee en 1719. Par M., Thomas Gordon, Sous le titre 
d' Apology for the danger of the Church, etc., pp. 109-128. 

Le Simbole d'un Laique, ou Profession de Foi d'un homme 
desinteresse. Traduit de l'Anglois de M., Gordon, Sur une 
brochure publiee en 1720. Sous le titre de the creed of an 
independent Whig, pp. 129-144. 

. Ibid. Published under title De La Monstruosite pontificale, ou 

Tableau fidele des Papes. Traduit de l'Anglois Londres 
MDCCLXXII. (i6vo, pp. 55-) 

B. N., H. 19859. 
1768. Examen des Proprieties qui servent de fondement a la religion 
chretienne, avec un Essai de critique sur les Prophetes et les 
Proprieties en general. Ouvrages traduits de l'Anglois. 
Londres MDCCLXVIII. (8vo, pp. 234.) 

B. N., D2 5190. 

B. M. 4017 de 18. 

Contains, Discours sur les fondements de la religion chre- 
tienne, pp. i-iii. 

Extrait De l'Ouvrage qui a pour titre: Examen du Septeme 

de ceux qui pretendent que les Proprieties se sont accomplies a 

la lettre. The Scheme of literal Prophecy considered, etc., 

1727. (8vo, pp. 118-234.) 

1768. David, ou l'Histoire de l'homme selon le coeur de Dieu, ouvrage 

7 



92 BARON D'HOLBACH 

traduit de l'Anglois. Saul, et David, tragedie en 5 actes d'apres 
l'Anglois. . . . (Londres, 1768, 8vo.) 

B. N. 3 ex. LD 2 5194, Hz 1542, et Res Z. Beuchot 798 (2). 

B. M. 4014 a 67 (1). 
1768. Les Pretres demasques, ou des iniquities du clerge chretien. 
Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois. Londres. MDCCLXVIII. 
(i6vo, pp. 180.) 

B. N., D 2 4639- 

B. M. 4017 de 29. 
1768. Lettres philosophiques, sur l'origine des Prejuges, du Dogme de 
rimmortalite de l'Ame, de l'ldolatrie et de la Superstition; sur 
le Systeme de Spinosa et sur l'origine du mouvement dans la 
matiere. Traduites de l'Anglois de J. Toland. 

Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat. 
Cicero, de Nat. Deor. lib. II. A Londres (Amsterdam). 
MDCCLXVIII. (8vo, pp. 267.) 

B. N., D 2 5203. 

B. M. 4015 de 48. 

Containing, Preface ou Lettre a un ami, en lui envoyant les 
Dissertations suivantes, dans laquelle 1'Auteur rend compte des 
motifs qui les ont fait ecrire. (pp. 12-26.) 

Premiere Lettre. De L'origine et de la Force de ces Prejuges. 
(pp. 27-44.) 

Seconde Lettre. Histoire du dogme de l'lmmortalite de 
l'Ame Chez les Payens. (pp. 45-93.) 

Troisieme Lettre. Sur l'origine de l'ldolatrie et sur les fon- 
dements de la Religion Payenne. (pp. 94-152.) 

Quartrieme Lettre. A un Gentilhomme Hollandois pour lui 
prouver que le systeme de Spinoza est deporvu de fondements 
et peche dans ses principes. (pp. 154-186.) 

Cinquieme Lettre. Dans laquelle on prouve que le mouve- 
ment est essentiel a la Matiere; en reponse a quelques remar- 
ques qui ont ete faites a 1'Auteur au sujet de sa refutation du 
Systeme de Spinoza. 

Nunc quae mobilitas fit reddita Materiae Corporibus paucis 
licet hinc cognoscere, Memmi. Lucret, lib. II, vers 142. (pp. 
187-267.) 
1768. Theologie portative, ou Dictionnaire Abrege de la Religion 
Chretienne. Par Mr. l'Abbe Bernier, Licencie en Theologie. 

Audite hoc Sacerdotes, et attendite Domus Israel, et Domus 
Regis auscultate; quia vobis Judicium est, quoniam Laquens 
facti estis Speculationi et rete expansum super Thabor. Osee, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 

Chap. V, Vers. I. Londres (Amsterdam), MDCCLXVIII 
(1767), (i2mo pp. 243). 
B. N., D2 14334. 
B. M. 703 a 25. 

. Ibid. Londres (Suisse), 1768. 

. Ibid. A Rome, MDCCLXXV (8vo, pp. 213). 

B. N., D2 8370. 

. Ibid. Augmentee d'un Volume. A Rome, avec permission et 

privilege du Conclave. (2 vols., i2mo (1776).) 

B. N., D 2 8371. 

— — . Ibid. Under title. Manuel Theologique, en form de Diction- 
naire. Ouvrage tres utile aux personnes des deux sexes pour le 
salut de leurs ames, par l'abbe Bernier etc. Rome, 1785 Au 
Vatican de l'lmprimerie du Conclave. (2 vols., 8vo.) 

. Ibid. 1802. 

1768. Le Militaire philosophe, ou Difficultes sur la Religion, proposees 
au R. P. Malebranche, Pretre de l'Oratoire. Par un ancien 
Officier. Londres (Amsterdam) MDCCLXVIII. (8vo, pp. 

193.) 

C. U. 201 N 14. 
. Ibid. 1770 (8vo). 

B. M. 4015 bb 32. 

. Ibid. 1776 (8vo). 

B. M. 4015 de 34. 

(Last chapter by d'Holbach.) , 

1768. La Contagion sacree, ou Histoire Naturelle de la Superstition. 
Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois. Prima mali lobes. ' Londres 
(Amsterdam), MDCCLXVII. (2 vols, in I, 8vo.) 

B. N, D 2 5195. 

C. U. 194 H 69 P. 

. Ibid. Avec des notes relatives aux Circonstances. Nouvelle 

Edition. A Paris, de l'lmprimerie de Lemaire, rue d'Enfer no. 

141, An 5 de la Republique (1797). (2 vols, in 1, 8vo, pp. 179- 

190.) 
U. T. S. 441 B. H. 723 c. 
. El Contagion sagrado, 6 Historia natural de la supersticion. 

Paris, Rodriguez, 1822. (2 vols., 8vo.) (Querard.) 
1768. Lettres a. Eugenia, ou Preservatif contre les prejuges . . . arctis 

Relligionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo. Lucret. de rer. 

nat, Lib. 4, v. 6-7. A Londres, MDCCLXVIII. (2 vols., 8vo, 

pp. xii + 188+167.) 
. Ibid. Oeuvres de Nicolas Freret, T. I, pp. 1-359. Paris, 1792. 

(8vo.) 
H. U. 19-30, vol. I. 



94 BARON D'HOLBACH 

. Cartas a Eugenia, por Mr. Freret. Paris. Imprenta de F. 

Didot, 1810 (8vo, pp. viii + 358). 
B. M. 4015 de 23. 
. Letters to Eugenia on the absurd, contradictory and demoraliz- 
ing Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion. Now 
first translated from the French of Freret, but supposed to be 
written by Baron Holbach, author of the System of Nature, 
Christianity Unveiled, Common Sense, Universal Morality, 
Natural Morality. R. Carlile, The Deist, etc., Vol. II, 1819, 
etc. (8vo, pp. 185.) 
B. M. 4015 f. 11. 

. Cartas a Eugenia. Madrid, 1823, por Don Benito Cano. 2v. 

N. Y, Z F F. 
. Letters to Eugenia on the absurd, contradictory and demoraliz- 
ing Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion, by Baron 
d'Holbach, New York, published by H. M. Dubecquet, No. 190 
William Street, 1833. (i2vo, pp. 236.) 
U. T. S. 326 B. 

. Letters to Eugenia etc., translated by Anthony C. Middleton, 

M.D. Boston, Josiah P. Mendum, 1857. 
B. P. 5484 2. 
1769. De la Cruaute religieuse. A Londres, MDCCLXIX. (i6vo, 
pp. 228.) 
B. N, D 2 8365. 
B. M. 4017 aa 25. 
U. T. S. H 723. 

. Ibid. Amsterdam, 1775, i2vo. 

1769. Le la Tolerance dans la Religion, ou de la Liberte de conscience 
par Crellius. LTntolerance convaincue de crime et de folie. 
Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois, Londres, MDCCLXIX. (i2vo, 
pp. 174.) 

Contains De la Tolerance dans la religion, ou de la liberte de 
conscience (Crellius). 

De l'lntolerance dans la Religion (d'Holbach), p. 88. 
Enfer detruit ou Examen Raisonne du Dogme de l'Eternite 
des peines. Ouvrages, tr. de L'Anglois a Londres, MDCCLXIX, 
p. 1. 

Dissertation critique sur les tourmens de l'enfer. Traduit de 
L'Anglois, p. 96 (by Whitefoot). 
B. N., D 2 5154. 

. Ibid. Hell destroyed! Now first translated from the French 

of d'Alembert, without any mutilations. London. Printed and 
published by J. W. Trust, 126 Newgate St., 1823. (8vo, pp. 47.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 95 

(Followed by Whitefoot's Torments of Hell, " now first trans- 
lated from the French," to p. 83.) 
1770. L'Esprit du Judaisme, ou Examen raisonne de la Loi de Moyse, 
et de son influence sur la Religion Chretienne. 

Atque utinam nunquam Judaea sub acta fuisset Pompeii 
bellis, imperioque Titi. 

Latius excisae pestes contagie serpunt Victoresques suos 
natio victa premit. Rutilius, Itinerar. Lia I, vs. 394, Londres, 
MDCCLXX. (i2mo, pp. xxii + 201.) 

B. N„ D 2 5191. 

B. M. 4034 bb 38. 
1770. Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de saint Paul, Avec 
une dissertation sur saint Pierre par feu M., Boulanger. 
Londres, 1770 (8vo), (by Peter Annet). 

B. N. 3ex. [D 2 5349 (2) 8367 et H. 7551]. 

B. M. 4808 aa 7. 
. Ibid. Nouvelle Edition, Londres, 1790. (8vo.) 

B. N. [H 13032]. 

. Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul. Translated from 

the French of Boulanger. " Paul, thou art beside thyself, much 
learning doth make thee mad." Acts, chap, 26, v 24. London. 
Printed and published by R. Carlile, 5 Water Lane, Fleet St., 
1823. (8vo, pp. 72.) 

B. M. 4372 h.g (4). 
1770. Histoire critique de Jesus-Christ, ou Analyse raisonne des Evan- 
giles. Ecce Homo. 

Pudet me humani generis, cuius mentis et aures talia ferre 
potuerunt. S. Augustin. (No date [Amsterdam, 1770?], i6mo, 
pp. viii + xxxii + 298.) 

B. N. 7,549. 

B. M. 4017 a. 45. 

U. T. S. 465 H 723. 

. Ecce Homo ! or a critical enquiry into the history of Jesus 

Christ being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels. Edinburg, 
1799- 

. Ecce Homo ! or a critical enquiry into the history of Jesus 

Christ, being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels. (2d ed.) 
London, 1813. Printed, published and sold by D. I. Easton. 

G. T. S. 232 G. H. 69. 

. Histoira critica de Jesus Christo, 6 analisis razonado le los 

evangelios. Traducida del Frances, por el P. F. de T, ex- 
jesuita. Ecce Homo. Vel. aqui el hombre. S. Juan, cap. 19, 



96 BARON D'HOLBACH 

v. 5. Londres, en la imprenta de Davidson, 1822. (2 vols., 
i2mo, pp. xiii +'200 + 280.) 
Contains Advertencia del Traductor. 
1770. Tableau des Saints, ou examen de l'esprit, de la conduite, des 
maximes, et du merite des personnages que le Christianisme 
revere et propose pour modeles. 

Hoc admonere simplices etiam potest, 
Opinione alterius ne quid ponderent; 
Ambitio namque diffidens mortalium 
Aut gratiae subscribunt, aut odio suo; 
Erit ille notus, quern per te cognoveris. 

Phaed., Lib. Ill, Fab. 10. 
A Londres, MDCCLXX. (2 vols., i2mo, pp. xxviii + 280 + 
286.) 
B. N., H 7,552. 
B. M. 4,824 a a a a 27. 
1770. Recueil philosophique, ou Melange de Pieces sur la Religion et 
la Morale. Par differents Auteurs (ed. Naigeon). 

Ovando enim ista observans quieto et libero animo esse 
poteris, ut ad vem gerendam non Superstionem habeas, sed 
Rationem ducem. — Cicero, de Divinat., Lib. 2. Londres, 
MDCCLXX. (2 vols., i2mo.) 
B. N, D2 5309. 

Vol. I, p. 129 (VI), Reflexions sur les Craintes de la Mort. 
Vol. II, p. 34 (IX), Dissertation sur l'lmmortalite de 1'ame. 
Traduite de l'Anglais. 

Vol. II, p. 50 (X), Dissertation sur le suicide. Traduit de 
l'Anglais. 

Vol. II, p. 70 (XI). Probleme important. La Religion est 
elle necessaire a la Morale et utile a la Politique? Par M. 
Mirabaud. 

Vol. II, p. 125 (XIII). Extrait d'un Ecrit Anglais qui a pour 
titre le christianisme aussi ancien que le monde. 
1770. Essai sur les prejuges, ou, De l'influence des opinions sur les 
moeurs et sur le bonheur des hommes. Ouvrage contenant 
l'apologie de la philosophie par Mr. D. M. 

Assiduite quotidiana et consuetudine oculorum assuescunt 
animi, neque admirantur, neque requerunt rationes earum rerum 
quas vident. — Cicero de Nat. Deorum, Lib. II. Londres, 
MDCCLXX. (8vo, pp. 394-) 
B. N., R 20 553. 
B. M. 8463 b b b 16. 
H. U. Phil. 264840. 
. Ibid. Paris Desray an 1 (1792). (2 vols., 8vo, Cortina.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 97 

. Ijfrid. Oeuvres de Dumarsais. Paris, Pougin, 1797. T. VI 

8vo, pp. 43-352. 

B. N., Z 23766-72. 
H. U. 9578 13 VI. 

. Ibid. Paris, Niogret, 1822. 

C. U. 3045 D 89. 

. Essayo sobre las preocupaciones 6 del influjo de las opiniones 

en las costumbres y felicidad de las hombres, Por Dumarsais. 
En Paris. Hallase en la casa de Rosa, Librero. Gran pacio del 
Palacio Real. 1823. (8vo, pp. 391.) 

B. N., R 34,366. 

. (Bibliotheque Nationale. Collection des meilleurs auteurs 

anciens et modernes.) Dumarsais. Essai sur les Prejuges. 
Precede d'un Discours preliminaire et d'un Precis historique de 
la vie de Dumarsais par le citoyen Daube. Paris. Librairie de 
la Bibliotheque Nationale. Rue de Richelieu 8, Pres le 
Theatre Francais. Ci-devant rue de Valois 1886. Tous droits 
reserves (25 centimes). 

B. N. 8vo R. 15952. 
1770. Systeme de la Nature, ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du 
Monde Moral. Par M. Mirabaud, Secretaire Perpetuel et Tun 
des Quarante de l'Academie Frangaise. 

Natura rerum vis atque majestas in omnibus momentis fide 
caret, si quis mode partes ejus, ac non totam complectatur 
animo.— Plin. Hist., Lib. VII. Londres, MDCCLXX. (2 vols., 
8vo, pp. 370 + 4!2.) 

B. M. 4017 f 32. 

U. T. S. 321 H 7235. 

. Ibid. Londres, MDCCLXX. (Second edition, 2 vols., in 8vo, 

pp. 366 +'408.) 

B. M., D 2 5166-5167. 

Contains Discours preliminaire de l'Auteur (pp. 16) Avis de 
l'Editeur. Preface de l'Auteur, etc. 

. Abrege du Code de la Nature, par M., Mirabaud, Secretaire 

Perpetuel et Tun des Quarante cle 1' Academe Frangaise. Lon- 
dres. MDCCLXX. (8vo, 16 p.) 

. Ibid. Nouvelle Edition augmentee par l'auteur a laquelle on a 

joint plusieurs pieces des meilleurs Auteurs relatives aux 
memes objets, etc. (Ed. Naigeon.) Londres, MDCCLXXI. 
(2 vols, in 8vo, pp. 397-500.) 

Contains Vol. II, p. 455, Requisitoire, sur lequel est inter- 
venu l'Arret du Parlement du 18 Aout 1770 qui condamne a 
etre brules, differens Livres ou Brochures, intitules. 



98 BARON D'HOLBACH 

1. La Contagion sacree. . . . 

2. Dieu et les hommes. 

3. Discours sur les Miracles. 

4. Examen des Apologists. 

5. Examen impartial des principaes religions du Monde. 

6. Christianisme devoile. 

7. Systeme de la Nature. 
Imprime par ordre expres du Roi. 
B. M., D2 5168. 

Reprinted in 1774, 1775-1777. 

. Ibid. Nouvelle Edition. Londres, 1780, 8vo, pp. xii + 371 + 

464. 

Contains Sentiments de Voltaire sur le Systeme de la Nature. 
Siguier's Requisitoire and Holbach's Replique. 
B. M. 528 1. 2526. 

. Ibid. Nouvelle Edition. Londres, 1781. (2 vols, in 8vo, pp. 

3i6 + 385.) 

B. N., D 2 5169. 

. Ibid. German Translation, Schreiter. Leipzig and Frankfort, 

1783. 

. Ibid. Paris, An. Ill (1795). (3 vols, in 8vo.) 

. The System of Nature. Translated from the French of M., 

Mirabeau. London, 1797. Printed for G. Kearsley. 
L. of C. 32053-S G E-12 11-15959. 

. Ibid. Philadelphia, 1808. Pub. by R. Benson. 

L. of C, B 2053-S G 3 E 13-11-1595 G. 
. Nature and Her Laws, as Applicable to the Happiness of Man 

Living in Society, Contrasted with Superstitions and Imaginary 

Systems. Done from the French of M. Mirabaud. London in 

1816. W. Hodgson. 

C. U. 194 H 69 S. 

L. of C, B 2053 S g 3 E 14-11. 15960. 

. Systeme de la Nature, . . . Avec notes de Diderot. Nouvelle 

edition. Ed. Lemonnier, Paris, 1820. B. Roquefort. (2 vols, 
in 8vo.) 

. The System of Nature, or the Laws of the Moral and Physical 

World. Translated by Samuel Wilkinson from the original 
French of M. Mirabaud. Printed and published by Thomas 
Davison. (Vols. 2, 3, R. Helder, 1821.) London, 1820. (3 
vols in 8vo, pp. xi + 348-311-273.) Contains Life of Mirabaud, 
Vol. 3, PP. 263-273- 
B. M. 804. de 20? 
U. S. 321. H 723. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 99 

Systeme de la Nature . . . par le Baron d'Holbach. Nouvelle 
Edition avec des notes et des corrections par Diderot. Paris, 
Etienne Ledoux, 1821. (2 vols, in 8vo, pp. xvi + 507 +'502.) 
B. N., D 2 5170. 

B. M. 124 g i. 26. 

C. U. TQ4 H 69. R. 
N. Y., Y C O. 

Contains extract of Grimm's Literary Correspondence, Aug. 
10, 1789. 

Systeme de la Nature, ou des lois du monde physique et du 
monde morale, par le Baron d'Holbach. Nouvelle Edition avec 
des notes et des corrections par Diderot etc. Paris, Domere, 
1822. (4 vols, in i2tno.) 

Contains Avis de Naigion. Avertissement du nouvel editeur, 
pp. 11-29. Pieces diverses, pp. 30-46. 

Sistema de la' Naturaleza, con notas y correcciones por Diderot; 
trad, al castell. por F. A. F. . . . Paris, Masson hijo, 1822, 4 
vols, in i8mo. 

B. N., D 2 5172. 
Selections from Mirabaud's System of Nature in the Law of 
Reason, etc. London, 1831. (i6mo, pp. 231.) Selections from 
Bon-Sens, pp. 39-81, 82-112. 

B. M. 1387. b. 3. 
Nature and her Laws, as Applicable to the Happiness of Man 
Living in Society, Contrasted with Superstitions and Imaginary 
Systems. From the French of M. de Mirabaud. James Wat- 
son. London, 1834. (2 vols, in i2mo, pp. xxiv + 287 + 320.) 
Sold for 7 s. 6 d. 

B. M. 1 133 b 29. 
Contains 

1. Publisher's Preface (by James Watson). 

2. Preface. 

3. A short account of the life and writings of the Baron 
d'Holbach (by Julian Hibbert). 

System of Nature, new and improved edition with notes by 
Diderot. Translated by H. D. Robinson. New York, 1835, 
published by Matsell. 

N. Y., Y B X. 
System of Nature, or the laws of the moral and physical world, 
from the French of M. Mirabaud. (New edition, pp. 8 + 520.) 
London, 1840. 

C. U. 194 H 69. R 1. 

System der Natur von Mirabaud. Deutsch bearbeitet und mit 



100 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Anmerkungen versehen von Biedermann. Leipzig, 1841. (8vo, 
pp. 604.) Georg. Wigands Verlag. 

A. T. S. (Andover 23). 

. System der Natur. . . . Translated by Schreiter, 1843. 

. System of Nature, new and improved edition with notes by 

Diderot, translated by H. D. Robinson. Stereotype edition, 
Boston, 1848, in 8vo. Published by J. P. Mendum. 

B. P. 00.80-6105.5. 

. System der Natur. . . , tr. Allhusen, 1851. 

. System of Nature. . . , tr. Robinson, Boston. 1853. Published 

by J. P. Mendum. 
B. P. 3600.48. 
N. Y,YCO n-15957- 
L. of C, B. 2053- S g 3 E 6. 

The System of Nature; or, The Laws of the Moral and Phys- 
ical World, by the baron d'Holbach, originally attributed to 
M, de Mirabaud with memoir by Charles Braglaugh. Reprinted 
verbatim from the best edition. London. Published by E. 
Truelove, 256 High Holborn, 1884. In 8vo, pp. xi + 520. 
B. M. 8467 a a 33- 

1772. Le Bon-sens ou idees naturelles opposees aux idees sur- 
naturelles. Detexit quo doloso vaticinandi furore Sacerdotes 
mysteria, illis saepe ignota, audacter publicant. 

Petronii Satyricon. 
Londres (Amsterdam) 1772, 8vo, pp. xii-515. 

. Ibid. Another edition, 1772, 8vo, pp. x-250. 

. Ibid. Londres (Amsterdam), 1774, i6mo, pp. xii-302. 

U. T. S. 321 H. 7236. 

. Ibid. Le Bon-sens du cure J. Meslier d'Etrepigny. Rome 

(Paris), 1791, 8vo. 

. Ibid. Nouvelle edition, suivi du Testament du cure Meslier. 

Paris, Bouqueton, Tan I de la Republique. (1792, 2 vols., 
i2mo.) 

. Ibid. Le Bon-sens du cure J. Meslier suivi de son Testament 

Paris, 1802, 8vo, pp. 380. C. U. 843 M 56 D 1. 

. Ibid. Paris, Palais des Thermes de Julien, 1802 (1822), i2mo. 

■ . Ibid. Paris, Guillaumin, 1830, i2mo. 

. Ibid. Paris, Guillaumin, 1831, i2mo. 

. Common Sense, H. D. Robinson, New York, circa 1833. 

. Le Bon-sens du cure J. Meslier, etc. Paris, Bacquenois, 1833, 

i2mo. 

. Ibid. Paris, Guillaumin, 1834, i2mo. 

. Ibid. Nancy, Haener, 1834, i2mo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY I0 I 

. Der gesunde Menschenverstand. Baltimore, 1857. 

. Ibid. Baltimore, 1859 (second edition), H. U. 

. Ibid. Tr. into German by Miss Anna Knoop. circa 1878. 

. Ibid., under title, Superstition in all ages; by Jean Meslier . . . 

who left to the world the following pages entitled Common 
Sense. Translated from the French original by Miss Anna 
Knoop, New York, 1878. C. U. L. 211 M . 

. Ibid. New York, Peter Eckler, 1890, pp. vi-339. U. T. S. 

. Le Bon-sens du cure J. Meslier, Paris, Palais des Thermes de 

Julien, 1802. (Gamier Freres, 1905.) H. U. 

. Superstition in all ages, etc. Translated from the French 

original by Miss Anna Knoop; arranged for publication in its 
present form and manner with new title-page and preface by 
Dr. L. W. deLaurence. Same to now serve as "text-book" 
number five for " the congress of ancient, divine, mental and 
Christian masters," Chicago, 111., DeLaurence, Scott & Co., 
1910, pp. xx-17-339. L. of C. 1910, A 26880. L. W. de 
Laurence. 

1772. De la nature humaine, ou Exposition des facultes, des actions 

et des passions de Fame, et de leurs causes, deduites d'apres 
des principes philosophiques qui ne sont communement ne 
recus ni connus. Par Thomas Hobbes : Ouvrage traduit de 
TAnglois. Londres (Amsterdam), MDCCLXXII. (8vo, pp. 
iv + 171.) 

B. M. 8403 c c 15. 

(Bookmark of Richard Chase Sidney.) 

. Ibid. Oeuvres philosophiques et politiques de Thomas Hobbs. 

1787. (2 vols., 8vo.) (Tr. by Sorbiere and Holbach.) 

B. M. 528 2222. 

1773. Recherches sur les Miracles. Par l'auteur de l'Examen des 

Apologistes de la Religion Chretienne. A Genus attonitum. 
Ovid. Metam. Londres, MDCCLXXIII. (8vo, pp. 172.) 
B. M. 4015 de 44. 
1773. La politique naturelle, ou, Discours sur les vrais principes du 
Governement. Par un ancien Magistrat. 
Vis consili expers mole ruit sua. 

Horat, Ode IV, lib. Ill, vers. 65. 
Londres (Amsterdam), MDCCLXXIII. (2 vols, in 8vo, pp. 
vii +'232 + 280.) 

B. M. 521 h. 8. 

U. S. 269 E. H. 723 (ex libris Baron Carl de Vinck, Ministre 
de Beligique). 

C. U. 320 H. 691. 

(Ascribed also to C. G. Lamoignon de Malesherbes.) 



102 BARON D'HOLBACH 

. Ibid. Londres, 1774. (2 vols, in 8vo.) 

. La Politica Naturale : discorsi sui veri principi di governo. 

Traduzione di Luigi Salvadori. Mantova, Balbiani e Donelli, 

'78-80. (2 vols., 16 (L. 5).) 
1773- Systeme Social, ou principes naturels de la moral et de la 

politique, avec un examen de l'influence du governement sur les 

moeurs. 

Discenda virtus est, ars est bonum fieri; erras si existimas 

vitia nobiscum nasci; supervenerunt in gesta sunt. 

Seneca, Epis. 124. 

Londres, MDCCLXXIII. (8vo, pp. 218 + 174 + 166, in three 

parts.) 

B. N., R 20275.76 E 1919. 

C. U. 320. H. 69. 
N. Y. SC. 

. Ibid. Par l'auteur du Systeme de la Nature, Londres, 1774. 

(3 vols., 8vo, pp. 208+174 + 167.) 
B. M. 8403. h 23. 
. Ibid. A Paris, Serviere, 1795. (2 vols., 8vo, pp. 472 + 403.) 

B. M. 8404 dc. 25 (ex libris J. Gomez de la Cortina et ami- 
corum. Fallitur hora legendo). 

. Ibid. . . . par le baron d'Holbach. Paris, Niogret, 1882. (2 

vols, 8vo.) 

C. U. 320. H. 690. 

1774. Agriculture reduit a ses vrais principes par Jean Gottschalk 

Wallerius, Paris, Lacombe, 1774. (i2mo.) 
1776. Ethocratie ou le gouvernement fonde sur la morale. 
Constituit bonos mores civitati princips. 

Seneca, de Clementia, Lib. I. 
A Amsterdam. Chez Marc Michel Rey. MDCCLXXVI. (8vo, 
pp. 10+293 + 2.) 
C. U. 320. 1 H 69. 
1776. Morale universelle, ou Les devoirs de l'homme fondes sur la 
nature. 

Natura. duce utendum est: hanc ratio observat, hanc con- 
sulit, idem est ergo beate vivere et secundum naturam. 

Seneca de Vita beata, Cap. VIII init. 
A Amsterdam. Chez Marc-Michel Rey, MDCCLXXVI. (3 
vols., 8vo, pp. 416 + 334 + 364-) 
B. N., R 18596-7-8- 
B. M. 231 h-3. 
. Ibid. A Tours, Chez Letourmy le jeune et compagnie, A Angers, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 103 

De l'lmprimerie de Jahyer et Geslin. Imprimeurs-Libraries, rue 
Milton, 1792. (8vo.) 

B. M. 527- K. 1-3. 
H. U. Phil. 2648.50. 

— — . Ibid. Paris, Smith (Rey et Gravier), an 6, 1798. (3 vols., 8vo.) 
. Ibid. Par le baron d'Holbach. Paris, Masson et fils. Libraires, 

Rue de Tournon, No. 6, 1820. (3 vols., 8vo, pp. xxxii + 314 + 

266 + 300.) 

C. U. 170 H 2. 
B. M. 841 1 k 7. 

. Moral universal odeberes del hombre, fundatos en su natur- 

aleza. Obra escrita en frances por el baron de Holbach y tra- 
ducida al castellano por D. Manuel Diaz Moreno Zaragoza, 
1838, imp. de M. Heras. (3 vols., 8vo.) 

. La moral universel por el baron de Holbach. Madrid, 1840, 

imp. y lib. del Establecimiento Central. (2 vols, in 4to.) 

. Ibid. Translated into German by Johann Umminger. Leipzig, 

1898. 

1790. Elements de la morale universelle, ou catechisme de la nature. 
Par feu M., le Baron d'Holbach des academies de Petersbourg 
de Mahheim et de Berlin. 

Numquam aliud natura aliud sapientia dicit. 

Juvenal. 
A Paris. Chez G. de Bure. Rue Serpente, No. 6, MDCCXC. 
(24VO, pp. vi + 208.) 
B. M. 528. a. 27. 
B. P., G. 3537.14. 

. Elementos de la moral universel, 6 catecismo de la naturaleza, 

por el baron de Holbach. Madrid, 1820, imp. que fue de Fuen- 
tenebro, lib de Sanchez en 8vo past. 

. Principios de moral, 6 manuel de los deberes del hombre fun- 
dados en la naturaleza. Obra postuma de baron de Holbach. 
Traducida al espanol por D. L. M. G. adoptada en su mayor 
parte de la escuelas de primera educacion para instruccion de 
los ninos. Madrid, 1837, i m P- de Ferrer y compania lib de J 
Sanz. (In i6mo.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY PART II. 

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic 

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1875. 
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Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes. Paris, 

1822. 
Barni, Histoire des idees morales et politiques en France au dixhuitieme 

siecle. Paris, 1865. 
Barruel, Memoire pour servir a l'histoire de Jacobinisme. Hamburg, 

1798. 
Lettres helviennes. Hamburg, 1798-1799. 
Bartholmess, Histoire philosophique de TAcademie de Prusse. Paris, 

1851. 
Bergier, Apologie de la Religion Chretienne contre l'auteur du Chris- 

tianisme devoile. Paris, 1769. 
Examen du materialising ou Refutation du Systeme de la Nature. 

Paris, 1771- 
Bibliotheque Nationale, Pieces originales. 1529 d'Holbach. 

Manuscrits Frangais, 15224, 22149 (Col. Anisson). 
Boiteau, Memoires de Mme. d'Epinay. Paris. 
British Museum Manuscript Index, 1876-1881. Mss. Folios 30867-69, 

70, 71. 
Brougham, A Discourse of Natural Theology. London, 1835. 
Brunei, Les philosophes et l'Academie Franchise. Paris. 
Brunet, Manuel du Librairie. Paris, 1865. 
Bucherberger, Kirche-Lexikon. 

Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume. Edinburgh, 1846. 
Letters of Prominent Persons addressed to David Hume. Edin- 
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Buzonniere, Observations sur un ouvrage intitule le Systeme de la 

Nature. Paris, 1776. 
Camuset, Principes contre l'incredulite, a l'occasion du Systeme de la 

Nature. Paris, 1771. 
Carlile, The Deist. London, 1819. 
Carlyle, Rev. Dr. Alexander, Autobiography, Ed. Burton. London, 

1861. 

104 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 105 

Castillon, Observations sur un livre intitule, Systeme de la Nature. 

Berlin, 1771. 
Catalogue des manuscrits frangais dans les bibliotheques departe- 

mentales. 
Chaudon, Dictionnaire anti-philosophique etc. Avignon, 1767. 
Claudon, Le Baron d'Holbach. Paris, 1835. 
Collignon, Diderot. Paris, 1907. 
Critica, 1903-1904. 
Damiron, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la philosophic au i8me 

siecle. Paris, 1858. 
Etudes sur la philosophic de d'Holbach. Memoires de l'Academie 

des sciences morales et politiques, Vol. IV du Compte rendu des 

Seances. 
Debure, Catalogue des livres de la bibliotheque du feu M. le baron 

d'Holbach. Paris, 1789. 
Delisle de Sales, Philosophic de la Nature. Paris, 1770. 

Memoire en faveur de Dieu. Paris, 1802. 
Delvaille, Essai sur l'histoire de l'idee de progres. Paris, 1910. 
Diderot, Oeuvres, ed Briere. Paris, 1822. 

Memoires, correspondence, et ouvrages inedits de Diderot. Paris, 

1830. 
Oeuvres completes de Diderot, ed. Assezat et Tourneux. Paris, 

1877. 
Douarche, Les tribunaux civils de Paris pendant la Revolution. Paris, 

1905-1907. 
Dupont de Nemours, Philosophic de l'univers. Paris, l'An IV (1796). 
Duprat, Les Encyclopedists. Paris, 1865. 
Duvoisin, L'Authorite des livres du Nouveau Testament contre les 

incredules. Paris, 1775. 
L'Authorite des livres de Moise, etc. Paris, 1778. 
Eclaircissements relatifs a la publication des Confessions de Rousseau, 

avec des reflexions sur les apologies de MM. Cerutti et d'Holbach 

etc. Paris, 1789. 
Encyclopedic des sciences religieuses. 

Epinay, Mme. d' Memoires et correspondence. Paris, 1818. 
Fabre, Les Peres de la Revolution. De Bayle a Condorcet. Paris, 

1910. 
Fabry d'Autrey, Antiquite justifiee etc. Paris, 1766. 
Fangouse, La religion prouvee aux incredules, etc. Paris, 1780. 
Ferraz, Histoire de la philosophic pendant la Revolution. Paris, 1889. 

Histoire de la philosophic en France au I9me siecle. Paris, 1882. 
Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne. London, 1875. 
Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXVIII, 1877. 



106 BARON D'HOLBACH 

Frederick II, King of Prussia, Examen critique du livre intitule 
Systeme de la Nature. Berlin, 1770. 

Freret, Lettre de Thrasybule a Leucippe. 

Funck, Les sophists frangais et la revolution europeenne. Paris, 1905. 

Galiani, Lettres, ed. E. Asse. Paris. 

Correspondence, ed. Perey et Maugras. Paris, 1910. 

Garrick, Private Correspondence. London, 1833. 

Gaste, Diderot et le cure de Montchauvet, etc. Paris, 1898. 

Garat, Memoires historiques sur le i8me siecle. Paris, 1821. 

Gazette de France, Aug. 10, 1754. June 1, 1781. 

Genlis, Mme de, Les diners du Baron d'Holbach, etc. Paris, 1822. 

Gibbon, Autobiography, ed. Murray. London, 1897. 

Private Letters, 1753-1794, ed Prothero. London, 1897. 

Grande Encyclopedic 

Grimm, Correspondence litteraire et critique. Paris, 1878. 
Nouveaux memoires secrets et inedits, etc. Paris, 1834. 

Hammard, Mme. de Genlis. New York, 1913. 

Hancock, The French Revolution and the English Poets. New York, 
1899. 

Hedgcock, David Garrick et ses amis francais. Paris, 191 1. 

Helvetius, Le vrai sens du Systeme de la Nature. Paris, 1774. 

Herzog, Real-Encyklopedie. 

Hibbert, A Short Sketch of the Life and the Writings of Baron d'Hol- 
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Holland, Reflexions philosophiques sur la Systeme de la Nature. Paris, 
1822. 

Hume, Private Correspondence, etc. London, 1820. 

L'Impie demasque, etc. London, 1773. 

Independent Whig. London, 1720. 

Jal, Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire. Paris, 1867. 

Journal de lecture, Vol. I, 1775. 

Journal de Paris, 1789. 

Laharpe, Cours de litterature. Paris, 1821. 
Philosophic du i8me siecle. Paris, 1818. 

Lagrange, Oeuvres completes de Seneque. Paris, 1778. 

Landry, Beccaria, Scritte e lettre inediti. 1910. 

Lange, History of Materialism. Boston, 1877. 

Lanson, Manuel bibliographique de la litterature frangaise moderne 
1500-1900. Paris, 191 1. 

Lenel, Un homme de lettres au i8me siecle, Marmontel. Paris, 1902. 

Lerminier, De l'influence de la philosophic au 18 siecle. Paris, 1833. 

Levy-Bruhle, History of Modern Philosophy in France. Chicago, 1899. 

Lowell, The Eve of the French Revolution. Boston, 1892. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 07 

Magasin encyclopedique. Mai, 1805. 

Mangold, von, Unumstossliche Widerlegung des Materialismus gegen 

den Verfasser des Systems der Natur. Augsburg, 1803. 
Marechal, Dictionnaire des athees (Paris). An. VIII (1800). 
Marmontel, Memoires, ed. Tourneur. Paris, 1891. 
Martin, Histoire de France, 1748-1789, 4th Ed. 
Michaud, Biographie universelle. 
Morellet, Memoires. Paris, 1821. 

Lettres a Lord Shelburne. Paris, 1898. 
Mornet, Les sciences de la nature au i8me siecle. Paris, 191 1. 
Myers, Konversations-Lexikon. 
Naigeon, Memoires historiques et philosophiques sur la vie et les 

ouvrages de Denis Diderot. Paris, 1821. 
Nouvelle Revue, June, July, 1912. 

Paulian, La religion prouvee aux incredules, etc. Paris, 1780. 
Paulian, Le veritable systeme de la nature. Paris, 1788. 
Payrard, De la nature et de ses lois. Paris, 1773. 
Perey et Maugras, Dernieres annees de Mme. d'Epinay. Paris, 1883. 
Picavet, Les Ideologues. Paris, 1891. 
Plechanow, Beitrage zur Geschichte des Materialismus. Stuttgart, 

1896. 
Querard, La France litteraire. Paris, 1833. 

Supercheries litteraires devoilees. Paris, 1870. 

Litterature franchise contemporaine (Continuation). 
Rabbe, Biographie. 
Repertoire de la Gazette de France, 
Revue Bleue, June, 1912. 

Revue de l'histoire litteraire de la France, Jan.-June, 1912. 
Revue de synthese historique, 1903, Vol. I. 
Revue des Cours et Conferences, 1908-1910. 
Revue des deux mondes, Apr., 1886; June, 1912. 
Revue encyclopedique, Vol. XVI. 
Rey, Rousseau. Paris, 1909. 
Rietstap, Armorial general. Gonda, 1884. 
Robinet, Le personnel municipale de Paris pendant la Revolution. 

Paris, 1800. 
Rochfort, L'Esprit revolutionnaire avant la Revolution. Paris, 1878. 
Romilly, Sir S., Memoirs. London, 1840. 
Rosenkrantz, Diderot's Leben und Werke. Leipzig, 1864. 
Rousseau, Oeuvres completes. Paris, 1793. 
Roustan, Les philosophes et la societe frangaise au i8me siecle. Paris, 

1906. 
St.-Beuve Portraits litteraires. Paris, 1878. 

Causeries de lundi. Paris, 1882. 



108 BARON D'HOLBACH 

St.-Martin, Des erreurs et de la verite. Edinburgh, 1775. 
Soury, Breviaire de l'histoire de materialisme. Paris, 1881. 
Stupuy, Chez Diderot, comedie en deux actes, en vers. Paris, 1868. 
Tallentyre, The Friends of Voltaire. London, 1906. 
Villemain, Cours de litterature franchise. Paris, 1859. 
Voltaire, Oeuvres completes, ed. Beuchot. Paris, 1829-40. 

Oeuvres completes, ed. Gamier. Paris, 1880. 
Walpole, H., Letters, ed. Toynbee. London, 1912. 
Weiland, Oberon, tr. Holbach fils. Paris, 1825. 
Wetzer & Welte, Kirchen-lexikon. 
Wilkes, Correspondence with his Friends. London, 1805. 

Letters from the year 1774 to 1796, addressed to his daughter. 
London, 1805. 
Wright, A History of French Literature. London, 1912. 



VITA 

Max Pearson Cushing, born in Bangor, Maine, October 
2J, 1886; Bangor High School, 1905; A.B. Bowdoin Col- 
lege, 1909. Instructor in English, Robert College, Con- 
stantinople, 1909-1911; Graduate Student in History, Col- 
umbia University, 1911-1913; A.M. Columbia, 1912, In- 
structor in History, Reed College, Portland, Oregon, 19 13- 



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Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIO* 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve 
Crane. A 16066 





















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